Plans to improve financial aid and increase the size of the social science faculty will be put on hold for a year in order to offset the cost of reducing the amount the University takes each year from its endowment.

The delay to parts of the University’s strategic plan will be formalized when the Board of Trustees meets at the end of this month to approve the University’s budget.

According to Director of Communications Justin Harmon, plans to increase the operating budget of the Office of Admissions and allow for the hiring of an additional member of staff will also be put off a year. The delayed parts of the strategic plan will not be implemented until the 2007-2008 academic year.

Harmon said the delay to parts of the strategic plan was proposed by Vice President for Finance John Meerts and has been submitted to members of the faculty and staff for review.

“There aren’t meaningful alternatives,” Harmon said. “Faculty and staff have had these possibilities before them for several months.”

Previously, President Doug Bennet had said that the money to reduce the draw from the endowment would come from reductions to the major maintenance fund and attrition.

Director of Financial Aid Jennifer Lawton said that the strategic plan had called for the funding of two initiatives to improve financial aid.

“These initiatives address the need for more support to our lowest income students and the need to control loan debt levels for all students,” Lawton wrote in an e-mail.

Lawton wrote that the specifics of the initiatives had not been fully planned when she realized that the funding would not be available.

“Currently, the plan allows the phase in of these initiatives to being with the Class of 2011 so detailed planning will begin this summer,” Lawton wrote. “I can tell you that we (the Financial Aid office and Wesleyan) are very committed to making the proposed initiatives a reality.”

Dean of the Social Sciences Donald Moon said that he was aware of the delay to hiring new faculty and said that departments have no immediate plans to hire new faculty. He said that the strategic plan calls for the establishment of eight new faculty positions based on successful fundraising and the department’s ability to fill the positions.

“Clearly the delay is disappointing,” Moon said. “We want to do this as soon as we can. But it’s a delay of an addition, not a cut.”

Moon said that the departments will instead work to hire faculty in existing vacant positions.

“Whatever problems we’ve been living with, we can live with in the future,” he said.

Harmon said that identifying “bridge funding” and fundraising has allowed plans for a dean of diversity and academic advancement and the Faculty Career Development Center to continue without delay.

The University will have reduced the percentage draw from the endowment to 6.4 percent by the end of this year, down from 7.4 percent. The Board of Trustees decided to reduce the draw from the endowment to 5.5 percent over the next five years.