Thrasher reflection

https://247sports.com/college/florida-state/Board/36/Contents/When-Does-Thrasher-Retire-120848340/

it wasn't "his" campaign. It was underway prior to Thrasher becoming President.

And I'm not talking about absolute dollars. I'm talking about percentage growth year over year. FSU being female-only during the first half of the 20th century isn't relevant.

For example, research at FSU was $209M in 2010. That ranked 89th nationally and 60th out of all public institutions. That increased to $231M in 2014, slightly improving to 87th and 57th in the country, respectively. It represented a ~10% increase in research, which was only slightly more than the rate of inflation during that time. Research totals have been in the lower $200M range for the better part of a decade at FSU.

FSU's endowment went from $525.3M in 2010-11 to $639.4M in 2016-17. That's about a 20% increase during a time in which the S&P 500 increased roughly 50%.

The Raise the Torch campaign will help some, but much(/most) of that won't go towards the endowment. It's also not an additional $1 billion in gifts on top of FSU's typical fundraising, which I think many people don't realize.

But I see a lot of stagnation. I don't see the Board of Trustees or the President addressing either. I don't see them setting goals or prioritizing these areas. How can they if they won't even acknowledge the problem in the first place?

Clearly FSU has been able to improve its retention and graduation rates. It's been able to dramatically increase the number of freshmen applications in recent years. Barron set a target of becoming a Top 25 Public. We set benchmarks and have seen our ranking rise dramatically since 2010. And yet, there is not the same impetus in regard to the endowment and research figures.

This post was edited by tricknole 15 hours ago