Four years into the “20 by 2020” plan, Binghamton University has seen a lot of changes and growth. BU President Harvey Stenger plans to address how far the University has come and where it is expected to go in his State of the University address.

Stenger will speak to the campus community on Thursday at 3 p.m. He said he plans to discuss the progress the University has made so far, and his intentions for moving forward. According to him, facilities have improved, the University has grown and it is time to focus more on growing quality and student success.

“We’ve got a great physical campus right now, we’ve got a great student body that is engaged academically and in the community,” Stenger said. “We’ve hired outstanding faculty over the last four years to add to the great faculty we already have.”

According to Stenger, one major way to judge education quality is through retention rates. BU’s current retention rate is 91 percent and Stenger said he hopes to reach 93 or 94 percent.

“We’re making sure that our undergraduates are educated as best as possible,” Stenger said. “This doesn’t mean just sitting in classrooms, this means having great experiences, having research experiences, having study abroad experiences and internships.”

The University is also juggling funding uncertainty, since the NYSUNY 2020 plan was not renewed. The plan had ensured consistent legislative funding appropriation and a tuition increase cap of $300 for the past five years.

“It is not as simple as it might have been four years ago,” Stenger said. “Having the NYSUNY 2020 in place was great as it gave us a five-year window that we could plan around, and now we have to be a little more agile in our planning and our implementing and looking at opportunities.”

Some of this planning will concern faculty salaries, which Stenger said have become less competitive. In the past five years, faculty salaries raised a total of 4 percent.

“Faculty salaries fell behind,” Stenger said. “The union is in the next contract negotiation. We hope that they get a raise, but who will pay for that raise? No one really knows, so that’s a big uncertainty right now that makes it difficult to plan.”

Looking at ways to combat funding uncertainty, Stenger said that graduate school tuition might provide additional support for the University.

“We know that students need graduate student education now [more] than ever before,” Stenger said. “We have some great master’s programs here and we can add new ones. But we can also see the current ones grow, and that would be another way to address the financial constraints that the state is putting on us.”

Stenger also explained why BU offers certain graduate school programs, and why it is not focusing on adding more preprofessional programs.

“People always ask, ‘when are you going to have a law school or a medical school?’” Stenger said. “The law market has gone in a direction that is probably not sustainable for a new law school. When you look at the competition just in New York state for law school … it would be tough to be the top law school in New York state. But the top pharmacy school, we probably, certainly can be.”

By attending the State of the University address, Stenger said, students can see a better picture of how the University is progressing. This can help erase any uncertainty that students may have surrounding BU’s plans for the future.

“If they can understand the complexity of how a university moves forward, that gives them an appreciation of higher education,” Stenger said.

And if students want to talk more, Stenger said, they can just reach out.

“I have a pretty open door,” he said. “And as I tell students: 6:30 a.m., East Gym, just send me an email a day or two ahead and we’ll go for a jog around campus.”