COD board extends Breuder's contract one year

The College of DuPage Board of Trustees voted to extend COD President Robert L. Breuder's contract by one year at its Tuesday, July 12, meeting. President Breuder's contract previously ran to 2015. It is now extended to June 20, 2016.

"President Breuder's accomplishments during his first two years at COD are too numerous to list here,” said COD Board of Trustees Chairman David Carlin. “From dynamic new academic programs to some of the nation's very best teaching and learning facilities to unparalleled fiscal management, President Breuder has provided the level of leadership that every institution needs but rarely receives. We are being positioned to be a national leader for decades to come.”

During President Breuder's first two and one-half years, COD has added more than 20 new academic programs, engaged the community in an unprecedented Strategic Planning process that now guides all short and long-term objectives, secured a $168 million bond referendum last November, and is currently revitalizing the physical campus with $350 million in new and renovated teaching and learning facilities.

This fall, COD will open its new Homeland Security Education Center, the Culinary & Hospitality Center, the Student Services Center, and the first half of the newly renovated Berg Instructional Center.

Under President Breuder's direction, $50 million will have been added to the College's unrestricted fund balance. With a projected FY2011 total credit hours taught of 549,750, the College will have increased total credit hours by almost 77,000, or 16.3 percent since FY2009.

President Breuder has more than four decades of service in education and administration. Prior to starting at College of DuPage in January 2009, he served as President of William Rainey Harper College in Palatine for 11 years.

While at Harper, President Breuder was credited with boosting Full-Time Credit Enrollment (FTE) by nearly 35 percent, growing the college's unallocated fund balance from $17.1 million in FY98 to $52.1 million in FY08, with a healthy fund balance of nearly 50 percent. In addition, in 2007, he guided Harper through a highly successful 10-year reaffirmation of accreditation and two capital referendums totaling $243 million.

President Breuder began his career as an instructor of Botany at Paul Smith's College in New York in 1967 before becoming the youngest community college president in the nation at Pennsylvania College of Technology in Williamsport, Penn., at the age of 36.

For more information, contact Associate Vice President for External Relations Joe Moore at (630) 942-2371, e-mail moorej7718@cod.edu.