Contingency Planning Update 12/8/08
Mary Schantz December 8th, 2008
TO: All Faculty, Staff & Students
FROM: Grant H. Cornwell
SUBJECT: Contingency Planning in Turbulent Economic Times: An Update
The drumbeat of bad economic news has been pretty relentless the past few months, with each new day providing fresh evidence of the spreading impact of the global economic downturn.
Wooster is not immune to the buffeting of these economic forces, but compared with many of our peers, we are well positioned to weather the storm. We have very modest amounts of debt on our balance sheet and are unimpeded by the liquidity problems that have bedeviled some colleges. Our endowment investment strategy was engineered to hold up well in just this kind of market downturn. The endowment has suffered losses, but not of the magnitude experienced by many other colleges. We ended last fiscal year with a balanced budget and are on track to do so again this year.