Though Jim Dresser graduated 45 years ago, he remains a strong presence within the University community. As the Chair of the Board of Trustees, Dresser ’63 works hard to ensure that the University is as successful as possible.

“I work on the Board to make the University better with other people who also love Wesleyan,” Dresser said. “We see things that can be improved and we make it happen. This has been most visible in facilities or fundraising.”

Since the early 1980s, Dresser has chaired the Annual Fund and the Alumni Association.

In 1990, he was elected as an alumni trustee and served one three-year term—Board members can only serve a single term as alumni-elected trustees. After being off the Board for two years, Dresser returned as a Board-elected trustee. Over the course of his four years as Chair of the Board of Trustees, Dresser has seen many improvements.

“Now with Michael Roth as the President, you can simply look at the numbers—number of applications, the size of the endowment,” Dresser said. “Until the recent downturn, Wesleyan has continued to improve in many dimensions—the annual fund, the quality of student, the quality of the faculty.”

Dresser believes that, during his years as Chair, the University has preserved the qualities that make Wesleyan “Wesleyan,” while making many positive changes as well.

“Wesleyan was an amazing experience when I was here, and I’m not ready to see the basic teaching change,” Dresser said. “However, there are many ways to provide better education. Our facilities were not up to standard when I came to the Board. Campus was not attractive. But we spent two million on facilities over the time that I’ve been on the Board, and facilities are second to none now in all areas.”

A few years ago, when the president of Williams College visited the University, he told Dresser that Wesleyan’s athletic facilities were the best in the New England Small College Athletic Conference (NESCAC).

Despite such praise, Dresser still has big plans for the Board in upcoming years. Because of the economic crisis, University finances have risen to the top of their agenda.

“In the short term, we are focusing on the fiscal challenge of balancing the budget because of our reduced endowment,” Dresser said. “Hopefully it won’t be too long before the endowment returns to normal levels. Of course fundraising is going to be more challenging in the short term, but we still have to make cuts in the budget. We want to do this while protecting things like our academic core and need-blind financial aid, since those things are a large part of who we are. However, it is difficult to find cuts in other places.”

Regardless of the financial situation, the Board is committed to offering the same, if not improved levels of financial aid to students.

“The large focus of our next capital campaign will be endowing financial aid,” Dresser said. “We want money for scholarships forever. Therefore, [financial aid] won’t be subject to swings in the budget like we are experiencing right now.”