Eureka College - IBHE

2006 PERFORMANCE REPORT 

Eureka College 

SECTION I: INSTITUTIONAL CONTEXT 

Mission Statement 

Eureka College, a liberal arts and science institution, affiliated with the Christian Church (Disciples of 

Christ), exists to cultivate excellence in learning, service, and leadership. The College fosters the mutual 

development of intellect and character so that the members of our community may lead meaningful, 

productive lives and succeed in their professional and social roles. 

Environmental Analysis 

• Economic Growth through Teaching Service and Leadership 

o Our faculty are highly trained and deeply committed to the craft of teaching. The faculty 

job market remains favorable for selective hiring. 

o We are an increasingly selective institution that educates a large number of firstgeneration 

students (a traditional demographic for EC). We provide a value-added 

experience to students who, in turn, go on to make significant contributions. 

• P-20 Partnerships 

o Teacher Education is still our largest academic program, both in majors and graduates. 

School districts across the state count our alums as classroom teachers, administrators 

and board members. 

o Eureka College has recently approved a program in Special Education in response to a 

growing need for teachers in this area, which is due in part to a lack of specialized 

training opportunities. 

• Affordability 

o The Eureka Idea, our no-discount pricing system is alive and well and continuing to 

provide a balance between quality education and affordability. 

o Financial aid commitments are sensitive to external factors such as interest rates and 

minimum wage level. 

• Access and diversity 

o We are successfully meeting the demands of transfer and non-traditional students who are 

on alternative schedules, and broadening student access to resources at other institutions 

through our library’s membership in an academic consortium. 

o We are located in a predominantly white rural community, but we nevertheless attract 

students from diverse backgrounds and cultures. 

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• Accountable for High Quality and Higher Quality Learning Expectations 

o Graduates are encountering highly competitive job markets and social challenges of 

growing complexity 

o External accreditation and certification bodies continue to raise expectations for academic 

accountability, and we continue to rise to the challenge. 

• Improve Productivity, Cost-effectiveness, and Accountability 

o Under our new President, EC has adopted a new strategic plan of “Growth with Integrity” 

ensuring that, by working smarter and not harder, and given continued enrollment 

increases EC can expect to grow its way out of its current financial challenges. 

o Better monitoring of cash flow allows us to meet unexpected cost increases in health care 

insurance, utility rates, and deferred maintenance. 

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SECTION II: PROGRESS 

POLICY AREA ONE: Higher education will help Illinois sustain strong economic growth 

through its teaching, service, and research activities. 

Eureka College continues to help Illinois sustain strong economic growth by producing graduates who 

embody the ideals of our mission statement and core values. Eureka College achieves this by offering 

students a combination of talented faculty and support staff, a rich and demanding curriculum, and a wide 

variety of out-of-class opportunities. This environment challenges students to pursue lives characterized 

by lifelong learning, service to others, and fulfillment of their leadership potential. 

Learning 

Our students are served by a talented faculty who are engaged as much in their roles as teachers as they 

are in their disciplines. Eureka College prides itself on being able to provide students, not with graduate 

assistants, but with actual teaching faculty who are also actively engaged in research We have among us, 

one faculty member completing a two volume reference work on slavery, another editing a scientific 

journal for lepidopterists, an art professor who received an Award of Excellence at the St. Louis 

exhibition “Fiber Focus 2005,” and many others who have presented papers and led discussions at major 

professional meetings. 

Eureka College also encourages students to present their scholarship, and this past year we had several 

students present papers at student conferences in the areas of Political Science and English; one student 

gave a session presentation for a conference co-sponsored by the IWU and ISU chapters of Sigma Tau 

Delta, the national English Honor Society. Faculty often engage students in their professional 

experiences as well, with one example being the group who assisted with hosting the National 

Association of Teachers of Singing Artist Award Regional Auditions this past winter. 

The College promoted several development activities this year to help enhance institutional performance 

in key areas. The Dean, our Library Director, and another faculty member attended a Council of 

Independent Colleges (CIC) conference on the “Transformation of the College Library,” which focused 

on the dramatic changes now occurring in colleges, and which was intended to held small- and mid-sized 

college libraries deal with those changes. We had several faculty from our education department attend 

the ISBE Fall 2005 Institutional Workshop the University of Springfield, which included a session 

entitled “Focusing on the Unit Assessment System.” Our library director attended an ILA pre-Conference 

workshop focusing on applied statistical tools for librarianship, while faculty members from our 

assessment committee attended the 2005 Assessment Institute sponsored by the University of 

Indiana/Purdue University-Indianapolis. 

At the beginning of the fall semester, the Dean of the college established the Dean’s Club, a fundraising 

initiative to help underwrite course-related trips, events, conference attendance, and other activities that 

might otherwise be beyond the reach of students. So far the Dean’s Club has helped to fund trips to the 

Art Institute in Chicago, a performance of Verdi’s La Traviata at UofI Champaign, a class trip to the 

Lincoln Library and Museum in Springfield, and others. The Club is also intended to sponsor campus 

events such as the Great Decisions Seminar Series, and an Editors’ Reception honoring members of the 

campus involved in editorial activities. 

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Service 

Eureka College is committed to cultivating an ethic of service to others in its students. The cornerstone of 

this effort is our Freshmen Seminar course, in which students are challenged to integrate classroom 

learning with community service. The seminar combines classroom discussion and assigned work with 

service learning projects in the areas of environmental stewardship, domestic violence, historical 

awareness, eldercare and literacy. Many students then go on to participate in other service learning 

opportunities, such as the Spring Break mission trips which have taken students to need areas in Los 

Angeles, Arizona, and this past spring, to Nicaragua. In addition, ten students participated in the Habitat 

for Humanity Collegiate Challenge in College Station, Texas during Spring Break. Finally, two students 

from the student-founded International Health Care Development Program (IHCDP) went to Costa Rica 

during the summer to work with HIV and mentally disabled patients. 

Leadership 

Leadership cultivation has long been central to the traditional liberal arts mission and is no less relevant 

today. Eureka College, with its small size, offers students wide and varied opportunities for leadership 

both in the classroom and out. However, Eureka College is distinctive in that it has built several 

programs around the cultivation of leadership skills, knowledge and attitudes. Foremost among these is 

the Ronald W. Reagan Leadership Program, which provides qualified students with an extensive and 

tailored leadership training through seminars, retreats, activities, group travel experiences and 

international mentorships. The Reagan Program has the added benefit of recruiting a significant number 

of semifinalists, over and above the five selected annually; this past year over 45% of those high school 

seniors interviewed as semifinalists made Eureka their college of choice 

The success of these mentorship in opening doors for our graduates led the college to institute, with its 

2004 cohort, the Durward Sandifer Mentorship, which provides a similar mentorship opportunity to any 

incoming freshman who completes his or her sophomore year with a 3.5 GPA. This past year, our first 

eight Sandifer Fellows were selected from this cohort. 

This past year, the faculty and Board of Trustees approved a new program in organizational leadership 

that will be a weekend cohort program beginning in January 2007. 

Indicators 

The progress of Eureka College in addressing Policy Area One bears on the following planning 

principals, outlined in the new Strategic Plan, approved by the Board of Trustees in May of this year: 

• Focus on students and personal attention in learning 

• Promote and ensure the centrality of the liberal arts 

• Achieve national recognition for “learning, service, and leadership.” 

• Enhance employee professional development, compensation, and benefits 

Eureka College continues to achieve national recognition for its students through its internship program, 

which last year placed 53 students state- and nationwide for a total of 218 internship credit hours. 

Locations where interns received credit include the U.S. Coast Guard, National Geographic, Caterpillar, 

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XLC Radio Station, BroMenn Hospital, and others. In addition, the U.S. News and World Report 2007 

College Guide has just named Eureka College the number #1 value in the Midwest in the in the “Great 

Schools Great Prices” (Comprehensive Colleges—Bachelors) category. --42 nd overall in the the 

Midwest. 

Our graduates continue to enjoy success in job placement after graduation. Table 1.1 (below) shows the 

results of our 2006 graduates survey. Many of our graduates find employment as a direct result of their 

internship experiences—an undeniable link between our curriculum and sustaining the economic growth 

of the community. 

Table 1. Percent of undergraduate degree/certificate recipients either employed or enrolled in 

further education within one year of graduation 

Number Employed Number of Percent Employed 

and/or Enrolled Survey Respondents and/or Enrolled 

40 48/39% 83% 

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POLICY AREA TWO: Higher education will join elementary and secondary education to 

improve teaching and learning at all levels. 

The commitment of Eureka College to K-12 partnerships continues to be embodied in its successful 

Teacher Education Program, our largest program in terms of majors and graduates—and growing. The 

purpose of our Teacher Education Program is to ensure excellence in elementary and secondary education 

by the training of teachers who are highly skilled in the performance areas of professionalism, classroom 

management, content knowledge, teaching strategies, and technological literacy. The strong presence of 

Eureka graduates on faculties, administrations, and school boards throughout Illinois is a testament to the 

quality of our program and to the depth of our commitment to integrating the educational opportunities 

available to Illinois Residents. 

For the second year, Eureka College was the recipient of a State Farm Companies Foundation grant to 

continue and expand an assessment study completed the previous year of graduates in the teaching field. 

This year the program was expanded to include graduates in private schools and those who are working in 

their second jobs. A portion of the grant was also used to implement Teacher Work Samples, a system to 

help students better understand how to assess their students in the classroom. 

The Teacher Education faculty is currently meeting weekly as part of an ongoing comprehensive review 

of the program, which includes “curriculum mapping,” a process which helps ensure that the program is 

meeting institutional, state and local guidelines. The college also offers summer workshops on campus for 

area teachers seeking graduate credit for recertification. 

As the result of a presidential task force to explore and bring new academic programs on campus, the 

faculty and board of trustees approved a new program in Special Education. After a review of the 

analysis of such bodies as the Regional Office of Education concerning the need for teaching in this area, 

along with a state board consultant, such a program seemed to be a natural fit to our existing Education 

Program, as well as meeting a measurable and quantifiable need for teachers in this specialized area 

across the state—a win-win for all concerned. 

Indicators 

The progress of Eureka College in addressing Policy Area Two bears on the following planning 

principles: 

• Focus on students and personal attention to learning 

• Promote and ensure the centrality of the liberal arts 

As can be seen from Table 2 below, Eureka College has seen a significant increase in the number of 

students completing certification in education. Moreover, the results in basic skills tests attest to the 

College’s success in preparing graduates who are capable of doing more than the minimum required 

for certification. 

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Table 2. Annual number of undergraduate students completing requirements for initial 

teacher certification by certificate area (Applies only to institutions with teacher education 

programs) 

Certificate Area 2002-03 2003-04 2004-05 

Early Childhood Education --- --- --- 

Elementary Education 12 13 14 

Secondary Education 5 4 12 

Special Education --- --- --- 

Total 17 17 26 

ICTS Basic Skills Test 2005-06 

The Basic Skills Test is designed to assess college-level skills in the four test domains of Reading 

Comprehension, Language Arts (Grammar and Writing), Mathematics, and Writing. During the 2005-06 

academic year the Unit had 49 students take the ICTS Basic Skills Test. Out of these 49 students, 36 

successfully passed the exam. This gives the Unit a pass rate of 73.5%. Note that some students took the 

test more than once during the given year. 

The possible scores on the Basic Skills Test range from 100 to 300 with a scaled Total Test score of 240 

or higher required to pass. The average scores for the test were: 

Table 3. 

ICTS Basic Skills Test 2005-06 Average Score Sample Size Pass Rate 

Total Test 251.8 49 73.5% 

Reading Comprehension Subarea 250.8 49 ----- 

Language Arts Subarea 255.7 49 ----- 

Mathematics Subarea 246.5 49 ----- 

Writing Subarea 250.7 49 ----- 

This average score is well above that which is required to pass the test. These scores are also consistent 

with the average scores for students at other institutions around the state, signifying that our students are 

right where they need to be at this point in their education. 

ICTS Subject-Matter Knowledge Tests 2005-06 

Content-area tests are substantial examinations of subject-matter knowledge at a level of understanding 

required of educators. They entail the use of conceptual knowledge and thought, not the mere 

memorization and recounting of facts. During the 2005-06 academic year, candidates took six (6) of the 

ICTS Subject-Matter Knowledge Tests. These included 110 - Elementary and Middle Grades (n = 10), 

111 – English (n = 2), 112 – Environmental Science (n = 1), 114 – History (n = 11), 118 – Psychology (n 

= 1), and 144 – Physical Education (6-12) (n = 3). 

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The scores on each of these tests range from 100 to 300 with 240 representing the passing score. The 

average Total Test scores for these tests were: 

Table 4. 

ICTS Subject Matter Knowledge Test 2005-06 Average Score Sample Size Pass Rate 

110 - Elementary/Middle Grades 259.8 10 90.0% 

111 – English 255.0 2 100% 

112 - Environmental Science 252.0 1 100% 

114 – History 248.2 11 81.8% 

118 – Psychology 254.0 1 100% 

144 - Physical Education (6-12) 252.3 3 100% 

All of these scores are above the 240 required to pass the test. Also, just like the scores for the Basic 

Skills Test, these scores are very similar to the average scores for the state as a whole in each of the 

respective areas. 

Assessment of Professional Teaching Tests 2005-06 

The Assessment of Professional Teaching (APT) Test is a pedagogical test covering the grade levels of 

the candidate’s intended teaching certificate, Elementary (K-9) or Secondary (6-12). During the 2005-06 

academic year, the Unit had candidates take both the Elementary (n = 11) and Secondary (n = 13) APT 

tests. 

Again, scores on these tests range from 100-300 with a Total Test score of 240 required to pass. The 

average Total Test scores for each test were: 

Table 5. 

Assessment of Professional Teaching Test 2005-06 Average Score Sample Size Pass Rate 

Elementary (K-9) 258.0 11 90.9% 

Secondary (6-12) 256.0 13 92.3% 

Both of these average scores are above the passing mark. Notice that both the elementary and secondary 

students scored about the same on their pedagogy tests. 

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POLICY AREA THREE: No Illinois citizen will be denied an opportunity for a college 

education because of financial need. 

Eureka College is committed to being a school characterized by affordable excellence. As a selective 

school that educates a large percentage of first generation students, we recognize the financial challenges 

that many of our students and their families face. One of our highest strategic priorities, accordingly, has 

been to maintain a pricing model that allows more students to experience the transformations that are 

possible through a quality liberal arts education. 

Indicators 

The progress of Eureka College in addressing Policy Area Three bears on the following strategic planning 

principles: 

• Stimulate revenue and endowment growth. 

• Achieve national recognition for learning service and leadership. 

Since the implementation of our successful pricing model, the “Eureka Idea,” we have achieved 

significant increases in enrollment. This has not only been vital to the college’s fiscal health, but it has 

made Eureka College an affordable choice for those seeking a private four-year college experience on a 

small campus. A win-win situation for both. Last year, the college enrolled 230 freshmen and transfers; 

this year our admissions staff projects that as many as 230 new students will be joining our campus this 

coming fall. Our tuition through the past year has been kept at the original “Eureka Idea” amount of 

$13,000. A modest increase planned for the coming year will still keep our base tuition below $14,000 per 

year. Our commitment to affordability and excellence earned us yet another #1 ranking in the U.S. News 

and World Report “Great Schools, Great Prices.” category. 

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POLICY AREA FOUR: Illinois will increase the number and diversity of citizens 

completing training and education programs. 

As stated under Policy Area Three, increasing affordability is has been one of the keys to 

increasing our enrollment, and the logical consequence of this comes increases in the number of 

graduates. At 127, the class of 2006 was the largest graduating class in the college’s history. 

Despite a smaller 2007 cohort, the college expects to graduate subsequently larger and larger 

classes in 2008 and 2009. Our ongoing marketing initiatives include 

Moreover, the relatively small size of Eureka College combined with the relative affordability to 

other private colleges make 

Indicators 

As the first college in Illinois to admit men and women on an equal basis, and as a college 

founded by men committed to the abolition of slavery, Eureka College has had a long tradition of 

education founded on ideals of diversity. Today, Eureka College compares favorably with other 

Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) schools with a 9% graduation rate of minority students. 

Our admissions office maintains the college’s visibility in such publications as Hobson’s 

African-American and Hispanic College Bound Student guides, as well as their website at 

www.collegeview.com. Eureka College has also been a sponsor for Hispanic Student Month in 

Chicago and its suburbs. Both our Admissions and Financial Aid counselors make visits to high 

schools in underserved population areas. Part of our appeal, we believe, is that because of our 

lowered tuition, we have already removed the “need-based” financial aid barrier to determining 

financial aid, and can concentrate on attracting the talent from these areas. 

Table 8. New Student Enrollment Data for the last three years 

Student Category 2004-05 2005-06 2006-07 

(Projected) 

Freshman 116 138 137 

Transfer 59 59 78 

Other 2 2 8 

As can be seen, our initiatives and hard work in the admissions office has paid huge dividends these past 

three years. The 2006-07 school year anticipates record enrollment. 

Table 9. Gender and Ethnicity Data for the last three graduating classes. 

Graduation 

Female 

Male 

Year 

White Black Hispanic Asian White Black Hispanic Asian 

2004 53 1 0 0 36 3 0 1 

2005 62 1 0 2 51 4 0 0 

2006 67 1 1 4 44 4 1 0 

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POLICY AREA FIVE: Illinois colleges and universities will be accountable for providing 

high quality academic programs and the systematic assessment of student learning 

outcomes while holding students to ever higher expectations for learning and growth. 

As an educational institution committed to fostering intellectual and character growth in its students, 

Eureka College continually strives to strengthen its academic programs and services to help students 

fulfill their potential for learning excellence. An important step toward realizing our commitment to 

quality improvement was taken during the 2003-04 academic year, when our then-new Academic 

Assessment Team completely restructured the College’s Assessment Plan in order to ensure greater 

institution-wide accountability. The following discussion in this Policy Area will focus on the team’s 

efforts. 

Fiscal Year 2006 Accomplishments 

The Assessment Team continued to meet regularly during the 2005-06 school year. Among its many 

activities and accomplishments was the development of the “Service, Leadership, and Involvement 

Profile”, an instrument that will allow students to report on their campus involvement and leadership roles 

on campus. Moreover, it is an assessment tool that ties student leadership experiences with the college’s 

stated mission to “cultivate excellence in learning, service and leadership.” The faculty approved the 

instrument and it will be implemented campus-wide during the 2006-07 school year. 

The Eureka College Assessment Plan underwent some review and revision this past year, particularly 

with regard to the addition of a Program Review Protocol and a revision of the General Education 

Assessment Plan. The Program Review Protocol is an instrument developed by a subcommittee and is 

currently under review by the Academic Affairs Committee and to the Academic Dean’s Office. The 

General Education Assessment Plan revisions underwent review and some revision in light of the 

program’s first year under the goals passed in 2004-2005. 

A review of our Intensive Writing Program, initiated by the committee in 2004-05 was concluded with 

recommendations and a proposal for a program revision that was passed by the faculty in Spring of 2006 

and is pending approval by the Board of Trustees. 

Over the course of the year the committee also requested and collected yearly assessment reports from 

majors and sent them to the appropriate persons for review and analysis. And finally, a pre-and postsurvey 

of freshmen was administered and analyzed which focused on the goals of the course and student 

attitudes about service and leadership. 

Fiscal Year 2007 Plans 

The Assessment Team will continue to collect and analyze yearly assessment reports on each major. The 

team has noted a growing understanding of the assessment process among faculty members, leaving the 

committee more time for analysis and requiring less time for educating our colleagues about the role of 

assessment in our teaching. In light of this growing acceptance the committee hopes to develop and lead 

workshops for colleagues on course-embedded assessment. As part of the Program Review rotation model 

will be jointly developed by the committee and the Dean of the College. Information. An analysis 

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instrument will soon be under development to gain the fullest benefit from the information gathered by 

the Service Leadership and Involvement Profile referenced above. 

Finally, the Assessment Team is especially keen on a return to the National Study of Student 

Engagement, better known as “Nessie (NSSE).” Last administered in 2002, the college freshmen 

compared favorably in the overall benchmark, while senior engagement lagged bit. It is a stated goal of 

the current strategic plan to achieve 60 th percentile or better across five dimensions by 2009. 

Fiscal Year 2007 Challenges 

Like many other small colleges with limited faculty and budget resources, Eureka's biggest challenge is to 

grow faculty expertise in assessment without the benefit of a full-time staff position focused exclusively 

on assessment. Thus, looking forward, our assessment committee will continue to provide the leadership 

in this critical area and individual faculty will be challenged to find time in their busy teaching and 

institutional service schedules to continue their own professional development activities related to 

assessment. One notable exception is the Education faculty who have received two years of grant support 

from the State Farm Foundation to improve the assessment of their teacher education program. 

Indicators 

The progress of Eureka College in addressing Policy Area Five bears on several strategic planning 

principles and key results areas: 

• Focus on students and personal attention in learning (in part, again, through returning to NSSE) 

• Achieve National Recognition for learning service and leadership 

• Enhance employee professional development 

• Strengthen our relationship with our Alumni and other constituent groups 

Table 10. Satisfaction ratings on Eureka College institutional goals, from 2005 Alumni 

Interests Survey. 

Institutional Goals 

Intellect Comm. 

Skills 

Aesthetic 

Aware. 

Cultural 

Aware. 

Natural 

Environ. 

Fitness Professional 

Competence 

Social 

Aware. 

Personal 

Values 

Leadership, 

Service 

Mean 4.97 5.09 4.57 4.48 4.31 4.24 5.13 4.83 4.84 4.77 

Median 5 5 5 5 4 4 5 5 5 5 

Sample 

Size 573 573 572 568 569 570 569 571 568 564 

Our most recent satisfaction survey, administered to all alumni in lieu of NSSE in 2005 shows the extent 

to which they believed that Eureka College had achieved each of its 10 institutional goals on a scale of 1- 

6. As shown in the above table, alumni expressed satisfaction with our treatment of every goal, although 

they felt most prepared in the areas of communication skills and professional competence, affirming our 

Writing and disciplinary programs. 

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Table 11. Pass rates on professional/occupational licensure examinations relative to national 

averages. 

Pass Rate Information for Selected Exams: 

Number of Students Tested, Institutional Pass Rate & National Pass Rate 

2002-03 2003-04 2004-05 

# Pass Rate (%) # Pass Rate (%) # Pass Rate (%) 

Field Examination Students Inst’l Nat’l Students Inst’l Nat’l Students Inst’l Nat’l 

Law 

Illinois Bar Exam: 

First-Time Takers, Summer 

-- ---- 80 1 100 80 3 100 80 

Medicine 

U.S. Medical Exam, 

Step 2 

* 100 95 * 100 94 * 100 92 

Dentistry 

National Dental Board 

Exam, Part II 

-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- 

Nursing 

National Council Licensure 

Exam, RN 

* 100 87 * 100 85 -- -- -- 

*no data 

External validation, as always, is an important indicator of our success in educational 

effectiveness. Of particular note is the upswing in students preparing for degrees in law, and 

while the date range of the current chart does not show it, we have recently had a student pass the 

National Dental Board Exam—the first attempt in many years. 

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POLICY AREA SIX: Illinois colleges and universities will continually improve 

productivity, cost-effectiveness, and accountability. 

Fiscal Year 2006 Accomplishments 

Under its new President, the college is working towards a “work smarter, not harder” ethic has that 

resulted in a number of initiatives and accomplishments across campus. 

Retention is the key to fiscal soundness in a tuition driven environment. And although Eureka’s retention 

may compare favorably to national averages, improvement in this area is still critical to our fiscal wellbeing. 

The academic year 2005-2006 was a banner year for retention, being above 500 in the second 

semester for only the second time in its history. This is the result of a number of campus initiatives: 

increased admissions standards, improvements in campus housing facilities, and maintaining our 

affordability under the “Eureka Idea” (now in its third year). But also, there is an increased awareness 

across campus that retention is not just the job of the admissions office: there are things we all can do, 

inside and outside of the classroom to make EC a good choice for students to stick with. 

The Business Office has increased its staff 1.5 FTE which has in turn improved its communication of 

critical budget information to senior staff, budget managers, and trustees. The ability to make informed 

budget decisions over the course of the year has had a significant impact on the school’s ability to stretch 

its cash flow deeper into the summer months, traditionally a “lean time” with summer school having only 

a moderate, though increasing, impact on revenue. 

One area of resource management the college has undertaken involves the consolidation and managed use 

of office equipment such as copiers and printers across campus. Many older devices were replaced with 

“multifunctional devices” (copier/printer/scanner/fax) machines which allow, among other things, 

centralized tracking of paper usage. In the coming year, it will be possible to begin charging for student 

copying over an allotted amount of printouts per semester, the idea being that the campus can now 

encourage judicious use of resources by students, faculty and staff alike, while recovering costs in a way 

that balances student expectations with campus resource consumption. 

The college completed the first stage of what it hopes to be an ongoing effort to replace older, less 

energy-efficient lighting fixtures to conserve energy and cut energy costs. A $4000 grant from the Illinois 

Clean Energy Foundation allowed us to replace older lighting fixtures with more energy efficient units in 

the administrative offices of the campus. This grant follows up on a $36,000 award from the previous 

year to replace fixtures on the academic side, resulting in a significant savings in utilities costs overall. 

Fiscal Year 2007 Plans 

Eureka College has been, and will continue to work toward a budget model that will allow the college to 

operate solely on its revenue stream (i.e. tuition) and rely less on unrestricted giving to cover operational 

costs. Of course, this will be made easier through enrollment increase, but it will also be effected, in part, 

through an ongoing evaluation of expenditures and capital outlay based on a “return on investment” 

concept. Additionally, the Board has approved a 5% contingency of net reserve to offset any last minute 

facilities expenses that might normally be a hardship over the course of the year. The Business Office 

plans to adopt stricter policies related to P.O. and cash disbursement payments. This is not only an issue 

to be addressed with campus budget managers but it also involves communicating billing and other 

expectations with our vendors more clearly. 

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Fiscal Year 2007 Challenges 

The age of many of our facilities presents an ongoing challenge, not only from a maintenance standpoint, 

but also from the standpoint of resource consumption. While a plan is in place to address many deferred 

maintenance issues, new issues continue to arise and place a strain on resources. Rising energy costs also 

continue to be a concern as these resources continue to be used by facilities and equipment designed for a 

less energy conscious age. 

Even with our recent increases in enrollment and tighter budget controls, finances continue to be a 

challenge to the college. Our immediate challenge is seeing the current strategic plan through, and this 

will depend largely on our ability to keep enrollment on the increase. 

Indicators 

The progress of Eureka College in Policy Area Six Bears on the following strategic planning principles: 

• Stimulate revenue and endowment growth 

• Promote efficiency and intentional reallocation of resources. 

• Primary measures will be budgets that are accrual and cash balanced, other supporting key 

performance Indicators/Ratios targets that are listed below: 

o Composite Financial Index (CFI) greater than (>) .4 

o Viability Ratio (Expendable Financial Resources to Debt) > .9 

o Primary Reserve Ratio (Expendable Financial Resources to Operations) > .4 

o Debt Burden Ratio (Annual Debt Service to Unrestricted Expenditures) > .6 

Table 12. Percent of first-time, full-time, degree-seeking freshmen who complete their degree 

within 150% of catalog time, for each of the past three years. 

Cohort Year Cohort Size Graduates Graduation Rate 

1998 118 69 58.5% 

1999 138 77 55.8% 

2000 116 58 48.7% 

Table 13. Fall-to-Spring, Spring to Fall, and Fall to Fall retention rates for each of the past 

three years. 

Year Fall to Spring Spring to Fall Fall to Fall 

2003-04 92.4% 84.9% 77.5% 

2004-05 89.1% 81.6% 72.2% 

2005-06 90.0% 88.8% 80.0% 

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Table 14. Freshmen Cohort Year 1 Retention rates . 

Freshmen Cohort Fall to Spring Spring to Fall Fall to Fall 

2003 83.7% 67.5% 56.5& 

2004 87.9% 72.5% 63.8% 

2005 95.7% 87.4% 81.0% 

While overall retention rates have risen dramatically this past year, Table 14 shows the most dramatic 

improvement of all with the 2005 freshmen cohort rate actually exceeding the overall figure for 

the college (Table 13). 

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Eureka College - IBHE

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