Update on Your Ideas to Support Georgetown’s Future

Dear Colleagues,

In January, I invited faculty and staff to offer their best ideas for increasing revenue and decreasing our costs at the University. We received an outstanding response – with over 200 ideas received from colleagues across Georgetown.

I reviewed every submission and, in collaboration with our Executive Vice Presidents, have identified a few areas for targeted action and will be working with relevant campus leadership to explore their implementation, including:

• Reducing costs of administration, by improving our business processes, including purchasing and procurement, consolidation of technology licensing, and university communication software tools.
  
  
• Reducing costs of space utilization, by assessing the university’s physical infrastructure and space for optimal utilization, including event management, reservation policies, event technology resources, and storage.
  
  
• Increasing revenue, by strengthening the reach of our non-degree programs, including executive and continuing education and our offerings to nontraditional students auditing courses.
  
  
• Increasing tuition revenue, by introducing new interdisciplinary undergraduate course offerings and masters degree programs that draw on the strengths of each of our campuses.

A number of submissions matched recently launched campus initiatives, including a furniture reuse program launched by our Office of Sustainability and meal plan options for faculty and staff. 

I have referred additional ideas that require more sustained attention and review to relevant campus leaders for consideration going forward.

I appreciate the creativity and boldness of the ideas that were submitted and offer my gratitude to each person who took the time to share their ideas. All ideas, regardless of whether they were identified for implementation or not, have helped us become a more innovative and forward-looking community.

We will announce a set of cost-saving and/or revenue enhancing projects at a town hall in April.

Sincerely,

Robert M. Groves
Interim President