Arick retires from Butler after 33 years. Photo courtesy of butler.edu.
MADDIE WOOD | MANAGING EDITOR | mawood1@butler.edu
After serving Butler for 33 years, Vice President of Finance Bruce Arick has decided it is time to retire. Arick began his Butler journey in November of 1990 as a senior accountant in the business office and was then promoted to assistant controller of the university. In February of 1996, he left for exactly one year to pursue another opportunity, but returned later as controller of the university.
In June of 1997, he was asked by then-president Geoffrey Bannister to step in as the interim vice president of finance, and only took until December of the same year to get officially promoted into the role. In 2011 when President Danko arrived at Butler, Arick’s role was expanded to vice president of finance and administration.
Arick plans on using his retirement to travel, hoping to achieve his goal of hitting all the United States national parks. The Butler Collegian sat down with Arick to reflect on 33 years at Butler and his accomplishments during his career.
THE BUTLER COLLEGIAN: How did you find yourself at Butler University?
BRUCE ARICK: I started my career right out of college in public accounting. I worked for Arthur Young, which was a big firm back in the late 80s. Arthur Young merged with Ernst and Winnie and became Ernst and Young in the late 80s. Butler was actually a client, and one of my supervisors from the firm came over here as controller, and shortly thereafter, he recruited me to come over and step into the senior accountant role. I have to admit when I started, I certainly didn’t expect to be here 33 years.
TBC: You said you have great memories here — what were some of the best memories or biggest achievements and accomplishments you’ve had here?
BA: It’s interesting when you think back. When I stepped on campus in 1990, a lot of buildings and [landmarks] you know as Butler just weren’t here. If you start over by Hinkle and work your way across campus, the HRC didn’t exist, the Sunset parking garage didn’t exist, Schrott didn’t exist. Holcomb and Gallahue were here but that project that actually finished up just a couple of years ago was being talked about when I got here in 1990. It finally came to a reality. I would argue that’s probably my proudest project because it was something that was a significant need when I got here in 1990 that we were finally able to get done. So I would say, of all of the major projects that I’ve been involved in, that was probably one of the one of the most memorable.
TBC: What do you hope that your legacy will be in the community as you move on to a new chapter?
BA: I think certainly that I left the place better than it was, and I hope that folks would say they enjoyed working with me. The buildings and projects, although I was certainly involved, they’re far bigger than any one individual. I don’t see those as what I would call a legacy, but I hope the legacy is that folks who had the opportunity to work with me enjoyed the experience.
TBC: In terms of tuition, how do you think that [recent] changes have affected Butler students? Have you had any say? Have you been impacted by these reactions from the community and students?
BA: Actually, I think the communication [email] actually goes out under my name, so I do participate in that process. Usually, what I’ll share with students that I interact with is that first of all, we try to manage resources, and steward those well, to try to manage keeping the cost of education down as much as we can going forward.
I think often it’s a surprise when students hear if tuition was solely based upon what it cost to provide that education, it would actually be higher. What I think folks don’t fully realize, and maybe we don’t communicate as clearly, is tuition is just one funding source coming in to help fund our operations. Other sources [are] gifts from donors, whether they’re annual gifts or gifts that were made to the endowment, that are generating an income that helps to offset costs, are all going to fund operations.
When we do the annual assessment of tuition, we certainly factor costs in that, but we also look at “What are our peer universities doing, and how are we comparing to their tuition? And where do we feel the right spot is for Butler in the market and often, that drives a lower tuition increase than what would actually be driven if it was solely cost?” Certainly, the other things that we do for access to students is we run a very healthy merit, talent and need financial aid program where we’re working with students, and awarding scholarships. So it certainly impacts students and their families, and we certainly get that. We do our best to try to manage that, with how we manage the costs and work with them on helping them with access [to] financial aid programs.
TBC: What do you view as the future of tuition at Butler, or even the future of expanding the campus?
BA: Well, organizations that stand still don’t thrive, so I see Butler continuing to push forward, looking for opportunities for where it makes sense to expand academic programs — whether they’re expanding existing or adding new [programs] to extend our ability to serve students and educate our students better and educate more students. There will certainly be additional costs for operating and renovation or building costs to maintain, and Butler will need to continue to manage those in a way that tries to optimize the ability to attract students and have access to a Butler education. That’s an ongoing effort.
Every year, though, they will be evaluating tuition. “What should tuition be the upcoming year and [what are] the reasons for increasing or decreasing or leaving it the same?”
The other thing that Butler will be looking to as they look at these expansions is, how can we partner with other external partners to get things done. We’ve had examples of that over time. We partnered heavily with American Campus Communities when we built Fairview and Irvington to get those two facilities done. The Ross hotel, that is a partnership with a third party that we expect to have minor investment in. We expect to leverage a partner to be able to do that project. Now, it will be a significant benefit to the institution to have an asset like that on the campus. But again, that will be through leveraging a partner to do that. I think the future will continue to require innovation and creativity to get things done.
TBC: What do you wish people knew about you and your work at Butler?
BA: Well, certainly I hope they know I have thoroughly enjoyed it here. You can’t help but love the place when you’ve been here for as long as I’ve had, and there’s really a community piece that you feel here, and I’m hopeful that you felt it as a student. It’s beyond the buildings and the programs. It’s just the group of individuals — faculty, staff, students and even visitors that are here. So I’ve been happy to be a part of that, and I hope that folks would feel that I was a good participant in [the community.]
This interview was edited for clarity and Collegian style guidelines.