A BETTER BUDGET
Strong overall financial results underpin a number of strategic initiatives in Stanford's budget plan for 2012-13, such as improving the competitiveness of faculty and staff salaries and bolstering the support available from general funds for undergraduate financial aid.
In a May 31 presentation to the Faculty Senate, Tim Warner, vice provost for budget and auxiliaries management, said the University's fiscal outlook was approaching the peaks of 2008, based on a variety of factors. The adjustments made during the recession, solid investment returns for the past two years, revenue from sponsored research and student tuition, room and board, and the recently completed Stanford Challenge—which raised $6.2 billion—helped account for projected operating and general funds surpluses, as well as budget improvement across most of the University's academic and administrative units.
Stanford's consolidated budget, which reflects all noncapital revenues and expenditures for current operations, except hospitals, has a projected surplus of $219 million on revenues of $4.4 billion and expenses of $4.1 billion (with $127.5 million of transfers, mostly to plant funds). The general funds portion of the consolidated budget—important because those funds can be used for any University purpose—is expected to show a surplus of more than $43 million on revenues of $1.1 billion. Yet another strategic goal is to foster an ongoing general funds surplus to provide for future programming efforts.
Warner offered cautionary notes as well, citing the possibility of national economic doldrums affecting investment returns and an anticipated decline in federal research as American Recovery and Reinvestment Act grants expire.
QUAKE RECEIVES 'OSCAR'
Stephen Quake, '91, MS '91, is the 2012 winner of the $500,000 Lemelson-MIT Prize, the "Oscar for Inventors." The award honors mid-career innovators as part of an effort to promote the widest possible impact for their work.
Quake, a professor of bioengineering and applied physics, is the holder of more than 80 patents and responsible for advances including a rapid DNA sequencer, a noninvasive prenatal test for Down syndrome and the biological equivalent of the integrated circuit.
An investigator for the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Quake is co-chair of bioengineering, established in 2003 by the schools of Engineering and Medicine. "It is important to remember," noted engineering dean Jim Plummer, "that, at just 43 years old, Steve Quake has introduced a number of inventions, any one of which most people would consider a lifetime achievement—and there's more to come."
