The Known Unknowns

This regular column will track, and attempt to clarify, available information about the university's plans to address a potential budget shortfall in the next fiscal year. As of now, there are 61 days until the budget planning deadline suggested by President Hamid Shirvani.

 Shirvani maintains that administrators have no existing plan in place to determine how we should make academic cuts that aim to balance the 2010-2011 budget

 Individual colleges (the Deans) have been charged with proposing a variety of possible scenarios to make academic cuts that aim to balance the budget

 College of Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS) Dean Carolyn Stefanco characterized the process in HSS as a task of the college Budget and Planning Committee, which should work in consultation with the chairs of HSS departments; no outcomes or work product of this committee have yet been made public.

When speaking to HSS faculty, President Shirvani said that this campus had to cut its budget by three and a half million dollars and that the deadline for saying how these cuts would be made is the beginning of May. The first working day in May is the 3rd, so that is the deadline I will use in tracking the decision-making process over the next nine weeks.

Shirvani said that he has no plan for closing the deficit. He will, he said, rely on the faculty, using existing governance groups and accepted processes, to make recommendations about the academic side of the budget. According to Shrivani, because staffing and operating expenses are already at minimal levels, the bulk of budget reduction scenarios must come from the academic side. He would follow these recommendations, he said, as long as they fulfilled his three criteria: avoided "horizontal" cuts, met the budget demands, and preserved the "core liberal arts." If the faculty are unable to create a budget that meets these criteria, Shirvani said he would be compelled to do so himself.

[Some definitions: A "horizontal" cut is the effort to reduce the budget by cutting funds by an equal percentage across departments. Horizontal cuts can be seen as a problem because earlier horizontal reductions put some programs in a position where further cuts would destroy them. Current budget demands are a vague, floating target. A "liberal arts" curriculum is one that provides a broad education as opposed to a curriculum focused on professional or vocational education.]

If horizontal cuts are seen as unacceptable, the alternative is targeted ("vertical") cuts aimed at radically reducing or eliminating departments or programs. There is some evidence that this is what is on the table. Or, rather, under the table, since no one has put forth a plan. At the meeting with HSS, Shirvani and Larry Giventer, who spoke as a representative of the faculty union, got into a brief to-and-fro about whether programs were going to be eliminated or discontinued. Shirvani's position was that while he cannot discontinue a department or program without going through a lengthy process, he is able to eliminate departments or programs simply by deciding to do so. Giventer questions this authority, but that Shirvani is thinking along these lines - protestations about having no plan not withstanding - was further evidence in his exchange with Jim Tuedio, chair of the Department of Philosophy and of the Budget and Planning Committee. In the exchange, Tuedio referred to "protecting" valuable aspects of the university and Shirvani immediately said that if the faculty are thinking in terms of protection then their proposals would not be accepted.

At this stage, then, the task of aligning the university to the demands of the budget falls on the faculty. In HSS, at least, this means that it becomes the responsibility of department chairs. In practice, it seems to have become the charge of the Budget and Planning Committee, which will come up with recommendations to the chairs that, if approved, will be forwarded to Dean Stefanco, and from Stefanco to the administration.

At an informational meeting called by Stefanco last Wednesday, there was very little immediate information to be had. In response to scenario questions about program consolidation/elimination, Stefanco indicated that HSS Budget and Planning is charged with such recommendations, and with consulting with department chairs to develop these. In response to a definitional question about temporary staff and full-time staff, Stefanco was not able to clarify how such designations would affect budget plans.