Schmidt announces slowdown in growth plans during Town Meeting

Rensselaer President Martin A. Schmidt ’81 hosted a town meeting last Thursday, his fifth one since becoming president in 2022. The semesterly meeting was delayed from its initial date of October 15 after President Schmidt tested positive for COVID-19.

President Schmidt began the meeting by discussing RPI’s bicentennial. According to the president, roughly 12,000 people attended the Celebratory Carnival last month, with Schmidt suggesting that the carnival become an annual event. “I think with the students’ encouragement and help, we should consider the Fall Carnival as being an annual event just like GM Week going forward,” Schmidt said.

Reunion Weekend was also a success with 2,157 people registered, up from last year's 707 registrations. Several organizations such as sororities, fraternities, ROTC and other affinity groups held their reunions during the weekend with RPI providing resources for venues and catering.

Schmidt then shifted gears to RPI’s financials. Enrollment for the Class of 2028 was much lower than expected. The Institute aimed for a class size of around 1,650 but ended up with 1,319, a difference that will affect the budget for the next four years. Other schools have also seen a drop in enrollment this year compared to last year. There was a roughly 5 percent decline in enrollment nationally, according to preliminary data. Part of the drop was due to changes to FAFSA which caused severe delays in processing families’ financial information that would get sent to schools.

The smaller class size will result in RPI slowing down its growth plan to hire more faculty and staff this year. Notably, positions that have already been fully funded will continue to be filled and positions left vacant due to retirements or departures will be filled when possible. Shortly after beginning his tenure, President Schmidt set a goal to bring the Institute up to 350 tenured and tenured-track faculty from the roughly 280 it had. So far, RPI has added 50 faculty and currently sits at 327 faculty. Schmidt emphasized that despite lower class size, no cuts will occur, only a “measured refilling.” RPI will return to its growth plans in the future once it is able to bring enrollments back up and increase revenue from donations and awards.

Part of the discussion around enrollments was in regards to RPI’s yield rate, or the percentage of students that accept an offer to attend RPI. President Schmidt stated that the yield rate was low, but did not specify what the percentage was. According to data provided by the Office of the Provost to The Poly, RPI had a yield rate of roughly 16 percent for the Class of 2027 and roughly 12 percent for the Class of 2028.

For comparison, the average yield rate among RPI’s peer institutions for the Class of 2027 was roughly 43 percent. Peer institutions are schools that RPI compares itself to for benchmarking purposes. The current peer institutions are Boston University, Carnegie Mellon University, Case Western Reserve University, Cornell University, Lehigh University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Northeastern University, Rice University, University of Pennsylvania, University of Rochester, and Worcester Polytechnic Institute.

President Schmidt then spoke about the general state of higher education, stating that there is more apathy over the need for a four-year education, and that the number of high school graduates is expected to peak next year and then decrease. As a result, RPI wants to move away from having undergraduate tuition fund most of the budget. One avenue the Institute has begun exploring is courses for working professionals. In October, RPI launched an eight-week course to better understand quantum computing.

The other plan for increasing revenues is finding ways to better engage with alumni. “If there’s one thing that’ll happen in my time as president, it will be us changing our trajectory in terms of our relationship with our alumni,” Schmidt said. He added, “this is, I believe, the [most important] thing for the next century of this Institution.”

Schmidt concluded by saying that “the opportunity set in front of us is massive, but I would also say our challenge is being able to move fast.” The meeting then opened up to questions from the audience.

The first question, asked by Assistant Professor Adam Biggs, was in regards to how President Schmidt makes decisions to speak as the president, in particular with regards to Hamas’ attack on Israel last year. Biggs stated in a letter to the community that after October 7, Schmidt was “very clear about the moral compass that you were [embracing],” but Schmidt has yet to send a similar statement despite a “genocide level of violence in Gaza.” In response, Schmidt stated he cannot tell someone to not express their views, but that they should do so in such a way that displays some degree of empathy.

Former Graduate Council Chairperson Alexander Lutsevich stated that many graduate students feel like they have been ejected from the RPI community once they lose access to their email and leave the Institute. Schmidt responded that abrupt loss of access is an issue he is aware of and should be worked on. He also mentioned that his former employer and alma mater MIT had a system called Infinite Connections that allowed alumni to provide their contact information which could only be accessed by MIT staff and students. Schmidt hopes that a similar system could be set up for RPI.

Lutsevich also asked how he thinks Artificial Intelligence tools should be used in both undergraduate and graduate education. Schmidt brought up an example of how when he was an undergraduate student at RPI, calculators had just become widely available. Similar to calculators, Schmidt stated “I think it's a technology, it's here, I think it's inevitable that we just have to embrace and figure out how we’re going to use it rather than ban it.”

Schmidt then deferred to Provost Dr. Rebecca Doerge who stated that RPI is working on an AI policy. In the interim, faculty should tell their students and teaching assistants how generative AI tools, such as ChatGPT, can be used in their courses. She also added that the institutional policy will allow enough room for students and faculty to use these tools responsibly. Dean of the School of Engineering Shekhar Garde chimed in with an example of how a professor used ChatGPT to solve a proof and then asked his students to find the flaws in the proof as an exam question. Garde echoed the sentiment of President Schmidt that the use of AI cannot be policed, but faculty need to teach students how to use AI.

A recording of the Fall Town Meeting can be found here.