Hillsboro University - A Virtual U Dynasty

[Young Drachma]

That's right!

I'm making the first Virtual U (http://www.virtual-u.org) dynasty. Why? I dunno, because I'd always wanted to do it, never got around to it or had a format that I thought would work. But I think I've solved for all those issues now and so, let's go!

[Young Drachma]

Hillsboro University was founded 5 years ago. The University is located in Hillsboro, Oregon (http://www.hilchamber.org/), an emerging community about 18 miles outside of Portland. The city is home to Intel and is the center of what is dubbed the "Silicon Forest". Nike is based nearby Beaverton.

The business community and locals were interested in having a university come to the area, but a private school that embraced local values. After some research, several major businesses stepped up and provided seed grants to the founding of the school - which were matched by several major philanthropic organizations.

Hillsboro University opened its doors and has emerged into one of the best universities in the country - despite its young age.

"The Hill" is largely an undergraduate institution, but is different than many in that it has an aggressive research program. There are graduate programs and less than 200 doctoral students as well at the University.

Nickname: The Vanguard
Colors: Vanguard Blue & Silver

Total Student Population: 4,460
12 Departments
297 Faculty

[Young Drachma]

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The University does nearly $44 million in sponsored research monthly. All numbers are in thousands.

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[Young Drachma]

Tuition Rate: $17,381
Room & Board: $3,597
Endowment: $1.496 billion
Endowment per student: $335,548

[Young Drachma]

HILLSBORO – Hillsboro University, preparing to celebrate its 5th anniversary is also welcoming a new President this week. Dr. Dark Cloud., was elected the second President in the school’s history by the Board of Trustees and will be sworn in next week.

Among his goals for the University are to increase enrollment and the prestige of the school. “We want to be among the top universities in the country. We believe we can do it and that is one of our major goals,” he said in a meeting with local business leaders last week.

Bronson was previously in the private sector, working at a number of firms including his own international consulting firm called TBG. He has consulted with various universities about their practices and has worked with a number of American universities as well.

He earned his doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania and his masters from the University of Tasmania in Australia. He was an undergraduate at Monmouth College in Illinois.

He said he was attracted to Hillsboro for his small-town values, while embracing the proximity to the big city. “We offer people the best of both worlds in this area and I think that our university should take advantage of the rich access we have to world-class development here in the Silicon Forest, as well as the talented students we have continued to attract,” he said.

There was no mention made of a tuition increase, though many consider it to be likely as the college will continue building. With most of its alumni still relatively young, the college has a hard time matching the contributions of its peer institutions, but he says that with the professional schools – The School of Law and College of Engineering – there is potential to “tap into a source of money that has yet to be explored,” he said.

[Young Drachma]

HILLSBORO – The University is prepared to welcome the new president and students are wondering what changes are ahead. “We really have some questions about increased enrollment,” said Joe Birkson, a sophomore in the College of Liberal Arts.

Most students are concerned about increased class sizes because of increased admission or that the college’s reputation will be impacted. “We’re a new school and its already difficult to get respect. This would be worse if we took too many kids who weren’t good enough to get in,” said Mandy Richardson, a freshman at the College of Engineering.

In a recent interview with the Vanguard staff, President-elect Bronson said students have nothing to worry about. “We are committed to maintaining the excellence that the University has achieved thus far and we want to exceed it. We’re not going to diminish those strengths. People come here because of small class sizes, our emphasis on research – but also on teaching – and we’re going to enhance that,” he said.

He said two of his major planks were to increase minority student representation on campus, which is currently at 5.1% He said he wanted to improve the numbers of women and minorities in the Math and Engineering programs, as well.

“These are critical areas and we must do better if we’re going to be on the forefront of academia,” he stated.

We will see over the next year or two how things change here as this seems like a critical time in the short history of Hillsboro U.

[Young Drachma]

Technology brings rewards
The University is now implemented incentives for departments that integrate technology into their teaching.

Budget for Athletics slated for chopping block
The new administration has slated a 5% cut in the athletics budget in 2005-06. They have stated that the money should be allocated in other areas where it could be better spent.

Endowment per student lags behind other major institutions
One of the many planks of President Bronson’s new “Rising Higher” Initatives are to raise the endowment, but to also – with increased enrollment – increase our endowment per student. Presently, Hillsboro ranks among the Top 30 institutions in per-student endowment nationally. We currently rank above Washington University in St. Louis, but they have over double the students we do.

Rice University, is a similar sized institution with Hillsboro. Their endowment per student is over $640,000. “We need to be able to provide Hill U students with the same thing other elite universities are able to do. We are getting there, but we want to do more.”

Hillsboro University was founded after a $400 million seed gift was donated by the Famouth Foundation. Other gifts were given to develop a top-tier private university in the Greater Portland area. “The goal was to create an institution that could tap into the valuable resources the area had to offer, while bringing the positive effects that universities do to emerging towns like Hillsboro,” said President Bronson.

Hillsboro University is a nationally-ranked, private research university with nearly 4,500 students.

[Young Drachma]

HILLSBORO – Intel announced plans at Allen Hall to create a new scholarship program called the Insight Scholarship. The program is aimed specifically at low-income students and will target them for areas like mathematics and the sciences. The scholarship will cover full tuition at the university.

“We are delighted to partner with Intel to provide this fantastic program for students who are deserving and high achievers,” said President Bronson. The program will begin next year.

A tuition increase of 5% is expected next calendar year, to accommodate an anticipated building boom on the campus.

[Young Drachma]

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Admit Rate (03-04): 45% Yield: 22% (undergraduate)
12% 51%
18% 54%
Our selectivity rating is 10%. That’s too low and if it gets much lower, the game will end. There’s selective and then they’re just plain too few students.

We want to increase our yield rate, but also want to lower our admit rate. The trick is, not having it so low that no one can get in or wants to come. The admit rate for our graduate programs will probably need to gradually increase, because they’re much too low right now.

The question will become do we want to focus more on undergraduates or do we want to expand the graduate programs more to make their our focus. I think we’ll expand slowly into graduate programs even more, but we’re going to make a conscious effort to maintain our standing as primarily an undergraduate institution.

[Young Drachma]

HILLSBORO – With over 139 students dismissed in a plagiarism scandal, the President is obviously worried. Classes were cancelled on the day of the students were dismissed from classes and there were mandatory workshops for students and staff. Failure to attend were to result in administrative sanctions.

At one point, the entire campus community met in Subway Arena to hear what the President had to say. “I’m not ashamed of my university. You should not hold your heads down for what has happened. We rooted out the problem and we want you to know. As staff, as teachers, mentors, colleagues and friends – that we will work with you. This is your future and its not worth cheating yourself.”

Many students said that they didn’t want to go to the speech since they didn’t do anything wrong, but appreciate the President taking the time and decisive action against the infractions. “The Honor Board did the right thing. No doubt,” said Susan Lyai, a sophomore in the College of the Sciences.

[Young Drachma]

YEAR 1 PERFORMANCE
Surplus: $23.766 million

The college was ranked 5th in the University Today rankings, an improvement from 6th last year. “We’re gradually improving and we’re glad to see that our progress has been recognized,” said President Bronson.

Year 2 enrollment: 6,397 (net increase: 1,907 students)


Year 2 priorities
- increase the number of faculty
- increase faculty diversity
- initiate new construction to alleviate what will eventually be a space crunch
we’re not currently facing a space crunch, but with the new increases of students, we’ll be facing one shortly

Actions
- We lowered the % of students living on campus from 94% to 84%, to reflect the increase in the numbers of students on campus. There is not much private housing stock in the area to reflect their increase numbers, but the college is working with construction companies to help alleviate that, along with more housing for professors, etc.

Our admit rate was an underwhelming 75%, but our yield rate was a very solid 45%. Considering we increase our admission standards, putting academic performance as our #1 priority, with extracurricular activities being worth about 40% of the what academics was. Athletic talent was place at about 20% value.

[Young Drachma]

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Even with tuition increasing, student morale increased by 3 points. We increase the student life budget by 5%, which reflects the huge increase there. Academics needs an overhaul and we’ll be working on that over the next two years to increase that number. Academic talent of our new student class was reflected in a 5% increase, considering we increased our numbers significantly, that’s no small thing. Athletic talent stayed the same and extracurricular went down slightly.

(The purple is the previous year, the black reflects this academic year.)

[Young Drachma]

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We decreased the average time to degree last year, lowered the number of dropouts and increased academic performance.

[Young Drachma]

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Tuition increased, but residence hall costs stayed steady. You can expect additional increases in tuition over the next few years, so long as the board of trustees allows me to do it.

As mentioned earlier, we lowered the number of students we allowed to stay on campus because of the huge spike in enrollment this year. That will likely continue as we increase enrollment, though I we can ill afford to spike up another 1,000 students next year - since we didn't increase the faculty numbers and I'm not keen on hiring a ton of part-time professors.

[illinifan999]

I'll be following.

[hoosierdude]

Thought I was the only one that played this game :) Enjoying this. Good Luck.

[lcjjdnh]

I'll be following but just have a quick question. I've attempted to play Virtual U and found it a bit overwhelming. I was just wondering if you could do more to state what you are actually doing in game terms if possible. This may be way too much work for you, I don't know, just thought it would help out a bit if I try to take on the game again.

[Young Drachma]

I'm glad you all responded. I thought it might be a stretch doing this and expecting to get readers. But its something I've wanted to do for a while.

Anyway, as far as "breaking stuff down," I will be more aware of trying to do that when I write this in the future. It'll get easier as I actually start figuring out my format, though it seems this visual/text correlation thing works well.

Also, view this thread (http://dynamic2.gamespy.com/%7Efof/forums/showthread.php?t=21679) because earlier in the year I wrote a little blurb on there about how to approach the game. It's not so much a "how to," as much as it addressing the fact that the game is pretty overwhelming if you don't just set a few priorities.

What I would also suggest is, playing a custom game. That is, changing the trustee priorities to minimize those financial things that I think aren't all that well developed in the game. I'd emphasize things you can actually control like degrees granted, educational quality and maybe diversity or morale.

Really, its just important to find a few things that are considered priorities to you at the school you're at and then make those changes - or work to make them - and hope things don't blow up. I wouldn't have all the random events turned on in the beginning either because its hard to deal with.

Maybe it'd be good to play a few scenarios to get used to each of the particular areas and then play a full blown game. I had to do that back when I started playing the game, because it was a lot. But that was two years ago...

So, yeah. I think if you do those things, hopefully it'll be a little easier to get into. But I will make sure when I write this to make sure I explain a little better.

But if something I do and you have questions or a term you don't understand, lemme know and I'll try to help. :)

Thanks for reading!

~DC

[Young Drachma]

::Everyone stands to sing the school song, “All Hail The Vanguard”

Ladies and Gentlemen:
We have made great progress in this the first year of our Rising Higher initatives. We have made progress, but we have much more to do. In this second year, we must work to increase diversity among our student body and our faculty. A world-class institution must go beyond the status quo and recruit talented and qualified individuals from all walks of life.

We are committed to improve our standing to become one of the top universities in the nation – and to be recognized as such. We are starting to get some attention, but we want to do more than garner accolades, we want to bring students to Hillsboro and have them realize this school is there for them.

We want to create the “Hillsboro Way.” Excellence in all things. We are excited about the future that lies ahead and will require all of us to be diligent and steadfast in our commitment to excellence in all we do.

Thank you for being here and thank you for your work everyday in making Hillsboro, the best.

[Young Drachma]

Last year, we actually managed to increase the surplus. I never set out to do that, because frankly, I don't believe a school should be running significant surpluses every year. But it shows good financial management that we didn't run over.

This year, we're going to have to hire more faculty.
I have already gone through each of the departments and changed the priorities for each in terms of faculty recruitment. We are keen on improving diversity, but more important for us are teaching talent and depending on the department, scholarly or research talent.

Admission will level out this year. That means enrollment for undergraduates will remain the same.

We may increase the graduate numbers slightly.

For the second straight year, tuition will increase by 5%, but we will overhaul our financial aid program. We will lower the % of students receiving merit aid from 85% to 35%. But merit aid means scholarships aimed at the top students.

We will be changing our % of students financial need we are paying from about 18% to 30%.

Higher Enrollment has meant that we have enrolled more top athletes than we had previous. Last year, we had 70 top athletes enrolled. This year, we have 219. Despite a drop in funding for the department, this bodes well that our academic goals are not being sacrificed, while we still attract top students for sports. ('course, we're D3)

Endowment We want to increase the endowment aggressively. It's currently up from $1.623 billion, about a 3% increase. We can and must do better.

There will be other things, but that's all I can think of right now.

[Young Drachma]

Well boys..

I got fired. For some reason, they said selectivity was too low. I dunno how that happened since I'd increased it really high for undergraduates - but who knows.

I'm going to restart the game, using the same parameters as last time and we'll keep the dynasty going. Or maybe I'll change the school a bit. I'll still post it here.

Stay tuned...