This year, for the first time, we offer you a special issue of the Hofstra Update, which we have titled "The President's Report: 2005 in Review." We have made every effort to capture the highlights of an extraordinarily active year, one in which our credentials have risen by almost every measure, one in which our alumni have achieved enormous successes, and one in which our campus has been alive with visitors and activities that have engaged students, faculty and community alike.

Selectivity and the requirements of entering Hofstra students have become more stringent. Most impressive has been the growth of Hofstra University Honors College, which exceeded its target goal of 600 students for the 2004-2005 academic year.

Yet no annual report can do justice to this exceptional year, and no annual report can accurately capture everything that Hofstra University represents to our more than 105,000 alumni and almost 13,000 students. A university is more than what happens in the classroom. Students learn by connections to faculty and to other students, by the experiences they all share, and by studying both inside and outside the classroom. At Hofstra University, all of these elements combine for an exceptional experience. 2005 was a remarkable year of growth and accomplishments.

A strong and increasingly selective student body

The reputation of Hofstra University continues to rise nationwide, and this is most evident in the academic credentials of the 2005-06 freshman. The average SAT score of the class is 1,151, up from 1,145 last year (and up 90 points from the class entering in the fall of 2000). Selectivity, or the percentage of applicants we accept, was 62 percent, compared to 66 percent last year, and 80 percent in the fall of 2000. The average GPA for this year is at 3.23, and the percentage of students in the top 10 percent of their high school class is now 24 percent, up two percentage points from last year, and up from 12 percent in the fall of 2000. Finally, 48 percent of the entering class is from outside of New York state, compared to 42 percent last year and 31 percent in 2000.

Hofstra University has continued to evolve and our reputation continues to grow.

We have been remarkably successful in improving the qualifications of our entering students, who are attracted by Honors College and by Hofstra's growing academic reputation and prestige. The 2004-05 academic year was one of growth and new initiatives for Honors College. For the first time, Honors College actually exceeded its target size of 600 students.

All of the colleges of Hofstra University had an outstanding year, and each of them played an integral role in the growth of the University.

In May 2005 Hofstra University Honors College graduated its first class of 73 students, a number that included both four-year undergraduates and students who transferred into Honors College. Among other destinations, our first Honors College graduates are headed for Ernst and Young, JP Morgan Chase, MTV and American Movie Classics, or continuing their education at institutions such as the University of Virginia, MIT, Harvard and Parsons School of Design. Our Honors College entering class is again strong and ever more diverse, with an exceptional average SAT score of 1,322 and an average high school GPA of 3.90.

All of the colleges of Hofstra University had an outstanding year, and each of them played an integral role in the growth of the University. Hofstra College of Liberal Arts and Sciences was at the center of the growth of our First-Year Connections experience, which is explored fully in an in-depth article in this annual report. The First-Year Connections program integrates first-year students in small learning communities that connect new students to full-time faculty, campus resources, social activities and each other, and is critical to our initiatives to engage and retain our students.

With the receipt of a pledge for the creation of an endowed chair in Jewish studies, the Department of Religion was formed and will establish Hofstra as a center for secular, interdisciplinary study of the world's religions. The new department builds on an existing chair, the Sardarni Kuljit Bindra Endowed Chair in Sikh Studies, and the search for a scholar to fill the Thomas J. Hartman Endowed Chair in Catholic Studies is underway.

Hofstra University is one of a handful of universities nationwide to be ranked for two consecutive years in Forbes.com/ The Princeton Review's Top 20 "most connected campuses."

The School of Communication, celebrating its 10th year as a college at Hofstra University, welcomed a roster of guest speakers that included NBC's Len Berman, former CNN anchor Aaron Brown, and Hofstra alum Steve Bartels, who is president and COO of Island Def Jam Music Group. In recognition of the School's anniversary, HBO has given the School of Communication scholarship funds and will inaugurate the Hofstra/HBO Premiere Series for HBO documentary films in 2006. We are also pleased that once again NBC chose four of our students to intern at the Winter Olympics in Torino, Italy.

The Frank G. Zarb School of Business had a very exciting year, with the ribbon-cutting for the new Financial Technology Center, our simulated trading floor, at which former SEC Chair Arthur Levitt and AIG CEO and Hofstra alumnus Frank Zarb spoke. In September, the school, in cooperation with the North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System, inaugurated two new Master's of Business Administration programs in Health Services Management and Quality Management, and enrollment in these programs has far exceeded our initial projections.

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