Welcome back from Thanksgiving break. I hope you all had a wonderful time with your families and got some rest and got caught up on your academic work. Special congratulations to the Rooks who have now been recognized into the Corps of Cadets. It was a great ceremony and marks another major step along your path to graduation from Norwich University.

Just before everyone left for Thanksgiving break, I did hear some concern that the date for Recognition was driven by the A & E film crew being on campus. I want to state that is absolutely untrue. The date for Recognition was chosen by the Regimental Commander, as it always has been in the past. As soon as we get the date of the A & E broadcast, we will be sure to inform the student body, so we can all watch it together.

While you were on vacation, I hope all students, civilian and military, had time to recruit for the new inbound Rook and Freshman classes for Norwich. It does make a huge difference to the University and helps our fine Admissions staff to have all of our students talking with potential high school candidates about enrolling at our University.

I received a question just before Thanksgiving about what is the long term enrollment plan for Norwich. For the Northfield campus, the ideal population would be 2000 students. That would place the Corps at 1250, occupying the upper parade ground. Approximately 110 civilian students would be living in Crawford, and we would have to construct a 300 bed civilian dormitory on the far side of the Kreitzberg Library. That is the long term plan, but at the present time we do not have the funds to build the new dorm, nor do we have the student need. In the interim, we are pushing to bring the Corps to 1000, to have 400 civilian students living on campus, and 250 day students. As we grow to build the demand for new housing, we will be asking more civilian upperclassmen to move into the community, and we are also establishing a plan for use of the dormitory system at Vermont College. Dr. Hansen will be writing to our civilian students about this in the near future. One of the main reasons I want to get to 2000 students is that we are finding it increasingly difficult with the size of our present student body to support the services we are now providing to our students. The addition of 350 students would help carry the financial cost of these services and would still maintain a small campus atmosphere which is one of Norwich's greatest strengths.

I have been President of Norwich for nine years, and throughout those years we have attempted to hold tuition increases to the absolute minimum and have averaged less than two percent tuition increases over that period of time. Significant increases in healthcare costs, fuel oil and energy costs and our institutional commitment to raise the level of compensation for our faculty and staff will, over the next several years, put incredible pressure on our budgets. The best thing current students can do is to use any opportunity to recruit for the class entering Norwich in 2001. Once again, I commend those of you who have already helped in this way and challenge all of you to talk about your University and the excellent education and preparation for the future that you are receiving here on "The Hill."

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