Campus Update

April 18, 2016

Dear Colleagues:

With less than a month remaining in the spring semester, our campus community is actively managing a full calendar of end-of-year events, performances, exams and academic and administrative commitments. Last week, many of you helped to facilitate our annual tradition of Service Day—a meaningful way to serve the athletes and families of Special Olympics—as well as neighbors in our surrounding community. I also want to thank all employees who helped host the public memorial service for former president D. Ray Hostetter on April 16. Thank you for extending a gracious welcome to the Hostetter family and other guests who attended the service and luncheon to commemorate President Hostetter’s contributions to Messiah College.

Commencement is approaching quickly and I look forward to celebrating God’s faithfulness and promise in the lives of our graduates. In the interim, I would like to provide you with an update related to enrollment, giving and other campus news.

Messiah celebrates two Fulbright award winners

I am delighted to announce that two members of the Messiah College community have recently earned Fulbright awards.

• Tim Sensenig ’15 (German and English with secondary teaching certification, and former Student Government Association President) was recently awarded a Fulbright U.S. Student Grant to complete an English Teaching Assistantship (ETA) abroad. Tim will be teaching English as a second language to middle school students in Hamburg, Germany from September of this year through June 2017.

• Christina McIntyre ’16 (Politics and international relations major, with further majors in sustainability studies and community and urban development) has been awarded a Fulbright research scholarship to Canada for 2016-17. Christina will be pursuing an M.A. in political science at the University of Toronto, with a thesis on urban housing policy as a means of poverty de-concentration.

The Fulbright Program, which is the flagship international educational exchange program sponsored by the U.S. government, aims to increase mutual understanding and strong ties between the people of the United States and the people of other countries. Read more at http://us.fulbrightonline.org/.

Enrollment snapshot

FY16 undergraduate enrollment goal: With our strong fall and spring enrollment as detailed earlier in my February update, we are on track to meet our annualized FFTE budget goal of 2,618 for FY16.

Undergraduate admissions for fall 2016: Applications and acceptances for fall are currently running about six percent ahead of last year. Additionally, the number of deposits received from first-year and transfer student exceeds where we were on the same date last year. We are experiencing similar positive trends related to campus visits and underrepresented, honors and international students. This lead places us in a favorable position as we continue to progress through financial aid season and look toward the national deposit timeline of May 1.

	April 12, 2016			April 12, 2015
First-year Students	Fall 2016	% to goal	Goal	Fall 2015	% to final	Final
Inquiries	28,084	100%	28,000	27,702	99%	28,037
Applications	2,539	94%	2,700	2,402	97%	2,469
Acceptances	1,999	100%	2,000	1,884	97%	1,950
Active Deposits	585	87%	675	575	83%	691
Transfer Applications	213	68%	311	190	72%	265
Acceptances	132	80%	165	112	61%	185
Active Deposits	37	44%	85	33	40%	83

Graduate enrollment: Overall graduate enrollment continues to increase. At this point in the fiscal year, 605 students have enrolled for a total of 7,799 credit hours and we are at 97 percent of our goal (versus 582 students and 7,006 credit hours at this point last year). I am pleased to report that we are on track to meet our budgeted credit-hour goals for FY16.

Announcing a new director for Messiah’s physical therapy program

Valerie Olson, Ph.D., has accepted our invitation to serve as the director of Messiah’s new Doctorate of Physical Therapy program. Dr. Olson has more than 35 years of experience providing physical therapy for adults, children and infants with various neurological disorders and serving on the faculty of professional entry-level physical therapy and doctoral Ph.D. programs. She will begin immediately in a part-time role through the end of July and will begin full-time in August 2016. We look forward to the leadership and expertise she brings to Messiah’s emerging new doctoral program in physical therapy.

New facilities progress report

Messiah continues to make excellent progress its various new construction and renovation projects:

Winding Hill site: Renovations are progressing well at the College’s leased facilities at the Winding Hill location, located off Route 15 near the PA Turnpike exchange in Mechanicsburg, which will house faculty offices for a number of departments in Messiah’s School of Graduate Studies, as well as classroom and laboratory space.

Traffic and passersby can now view the Messiah College sign on the Winding Hill facility, which was installed on the exterior of the building in late March. Contractors are currently finishing up the drywall installation, and overall construction is planned to be completed in June 2016, at which time graduate faculty and staff move into their new space. During the 2016-2017 academic year, the teaching spaces for the College’s pending programs in occupational and physical therapy will be completed and used for recruitment tours.

Fitness center and gymnasium addition: Construction on this important new facility was initiated in early March, including the site work and the demolition of various areas in Sollenberger Sports Center and Eisenhower Campus Center. Foundation work is scheduled to begin in the next few weeks and June 1 is the target date to start erecting the steel; the College and its partnering contractors plan to have that work completed before the students return in the fall. Final construction is planned to be completed in time for the launch of the 2017-2018 academic year.

CCHP/natural gas update: UGI has completed the installation of the natural gas lines from US Route 15 onto campus. Eisenhower Campus Center, along with several other buildings, is already converted from propane to natural gas, and the College will convert all of the other campus buildings before the end of July 2016.

Contractors continue to work on the combined cooling heat and power plant (CCHP), located behind Sollenberger Sports Center. Work to connect the capstone turbines to the power grid has been completed, and currently all of the power that is being generated for the campus center is being made on-site by the capstone turbines (which means Eisenhower is now completely off of the PPL electric grid). In addition to generating the power needed for Eisenhower, the CCHP is generating extra power that is being put back on the PPL electric grid and being credited back to Messiah to offset the power needs for Boyer, Frey, Kline and Jordan.

 Over the next few weeks, contractors will work to connect piping to the absorption chiller from the capstone turbines to provide cooling to various other campus buildings. Work will also continue to connect the heating and domestic hot water loops from Frey, Kline, Jordan and Eisenhower through the exhaust heat exchanger from the turbines. This allows waste heat to be recovered from the process of making our own electricity and then be used for heating and domestic hot water purposes. The project is expected to be completed by May 30, 2016, and is estimated to save the College $800,000 annually in energy costs and reduce overall campus emissions by about 25 percent.

Giving update

Overall Giving: We are in the final quarter of the fiscal year and giving continues to be strong. Overall giving has reached $7.2 million, which is 102 percent of our June 30 goal and we are working to successfully complete the Messiah Fund/Operating goal of $1,441,000. Currently, we have raised $1.35 million (94% of June 30 goal).

FY16 Giving Progress Report

Overall Giving

April 8, 2016	April 8, 2015	April 8, 2014
$7,210,966	$5,855,517	$7,656,114
102% of June 30 goal of $7,071,018	97% of June 30 goal of $6,028,700	126% of June 30 goal of $6,064, 156

Messiah Fund/Operating

*Not included in the Messiah Fund is a non-cash unrestricted bequest of a farm

 Campaign for Wellness: We remain grateful for the support for our Campaign for Wellness, and the construction of a new fitness center and gymnasium addition and renovation. More than $5.6 million has been raised to date with a significant number of proposals pending and planned; this represents 94 percent of our $6 million fundraising goal.

Endowment Challenge 2016: $250,000 in new endowment matching was approved by the board of trustees at their October 2015 meeting. To date, we have secured nearly 10 new scholarship funds totaling $154,000. We look forward to meeting the challenge by the June 30 deadline – and perhaps even sooner!

We Love Messiah: We are very excited for this year’s “We Love Messiah” campaign. In addition to various activities that help educate current students about the importance of giving, a generous group of alumni have challenged fellow alumni to be one of 500 new alumni donors to show love for Messiah by June 30, 2016. In return, the alumni group will contribute up to $25,000 to the Messiah Fund if we reach the 500 goal. Every new donor, regardless of gift size, will help us achieve this goal and make a positive impact on the Messiah community.

Good news about Messiah College

Here is a sample of some recent new highlights about the success and recognition of Messiah College’s programs and people. For more details visit messiah.edu/news, Messiah’s official Facebook page at facebook.com/MessiahCollege and the Bridge magazine www.messiah.edu/the_Bridge  (the source sites for many of the below news items).

• On April 1, Messiah cosponsored the first in a series of two “Together For Tomorrow” events for student achievement in partnership with the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships at the U.S. Department of Education. College educators and administrators convened with representatives from several other local partners (including the Harrisburg School District, United Way of the Capital Region, Pennsylvania Campus Compact, the City of Harrisburg and World Affairs Council of Harrisburg). Together for Tomorrow is a national initiative to spotlight and foster partnerships among schools, families, national service programs and community-based organizations in order to propel improvement of our lowest-performing schools.

• Messiah College’s accounting graduates continue to excel on the national CPA exam. Out of more than 70 accounting programs in Pennsylvania, Messiah ranked third in 2015, with a pass rate of 75.9 percent (national average 55 percent; state average 55.4 percent) for its first-time exam takers. Congratulations to all of our accounting students and faculty for this academic and professional distinction.

• Brian Swartz, chair of Messiah’s engineering department, was selected to receive the 2016 Young Engineer of the Year Award by the Central Pennsylvania Engineers Council. Recognized for his professional excellence and involvement in numerous professional associations, Brian first came to Messiah to provide leadership to the launch of a civil engineering concentration within the existing engineering department. He is also a faculty advisor for Messiah’s Collaboratory—working with students and helping to direct bridge design and construction projects around the globe.

• Share Faith Magazine recently named Messiah among its top 20 colleges and universities where students are able to earn a degree in worship ministry. Share Faith chose schools based on reputation for worship arts offerings, both in facilities and faculty. To see the full list, visit here.

 Athletics highlights

Below are some highlights since my last update from Messiah Athletics. Visit www.GoMessiah.com the source for the stories below and for the Falcons’ most current scores, announcements and the full slate of team-specific news.

• Messiah softball is currently ranked No. 16 in the most recent NFCA Top 25 Poll. The team is 26-3 overall and 10-0 in the MAC Commonwealth.

• Messiah women’s lacrosse is currently ranked No. 19 in the most recent IWLCA Top 20 Poll. The team is 8-5 overall and 4-0 in the MAC Commonwealth.

• Messiah College wrestling completed the most prolific season in program history with a National Runner-Up team performance at the NCAA Division III National Championships. Among Messiah’s six All-Americans (a program record for Messiah wrestling)—two were individual National Champions: Lucas Malmberg and Ben Swarr. These performances raise Messiah’s Division III National Championship count to 25 (16 team, nine individual)!

• Messiah College Head Wrestling Coach Bryan Brunk was named NWCA National Coach of the Year for the second time in three seasons. Assistant coach Craig Hogan was named NWCA Assistant Coach of the Year for the first time in his career.

• Tim Moses finished fourth overall at the NCAA Division III Indoor Pole Vault Championships. This marked Tim’s fifth All-American performance in as many tries in the pole vault across both the Indoor and Outdoor seasons.

• Messiah College field hockey was recognized by the NFHCA with both a team academic award (cumulative GPA 3.0 or higher) and 19 individual academic honors (cumulative 3.30 GPA or higher). The 19 honors were tied for second in all of Division III.

In closing

I am grateful for all that you do to serve our students, alumni, campus community and surrounding region—and for the contributions you make to advance Messiah’s mission in church and society.

Warmest regards,

Kim S. Phipps

President