Spring Break
Proposal cuts $2.1M from 2010 budget
by Miranda Neubauer
Senior Writer
News | 1/13/09
Posted online at 6:10 AM EST on 1/13/09
University President Jehuda Reinharz accepted a proposal made by the Special Faculty Advisory Committee to meet a budget cut target of $2.1 million for fiscal year 2010 by reducing administrative staff, reducing the hiring of adjunct faculty, increasing class sizes, reducing the number of new Ph.D. students accepted to the graduate school and increasing revenue in the graduate school, Dean of Arts and Sciences Adam Jaffe said.
In October, Reinharz projected a $10 million gap in the University's $336 million fiscal year 2009 operating budget.
The reductions in staff would be accomplished via administrative layoffs and cutbacks in the number of working hours per week or per year for administrative staff. Jaffe added that other administrative staff currently on University payroll might receive their salaries from faculty research grants from the government or foundations. Jaffe said a list of potential administrative staff cuts in Arts and Sciences exists that is prioritized based on the harm the layoffs would cause to the University. In an e-mail to academic chairs Dec. 6, Jaffe wrote that "the final list [of cuts] will be developed in early January, and the actions will be communicated to the affected individuals sometime around the third week of January. Changes will be effective approximately Feb. 1." Jaffe said yesterday the list of layoffs would be finalized this week or next. "We're still looking at how we would manage without these people," he said. "Until we're sure that we can deal with the situation that we create by laying somebody off we're not going to lay them off."
Replacing the previously mandatory University Seminar program with an optional First-year Seminar and increasing the sizes of language classes will allow professors to teach other required classes and will reduce the need for adjuncts, Jaffe said. He added that he is reviewing every department's need for adjuncts: "If there are courses that really have to be taught, they will be taught, but for courses that are more optional, if we would have to hire someone from the outside to do it, we probably won't be doing it."
In October, Reinharz projected a $10 million gap in the University's $336 million fiscal year 2009 operating budget.
The reductions in staff would be accomplished via administrative layoffs and cutbacks in the number of working hours per week or per year for administrative staff. Jaffe added that other administrative staff currently on University payroll might receive their salaries from faculty research grants from the government or foundations. Jaffe said a list of potential administrative staff cuts in Arts and Sciences exists that is prioritized based on the harm the layoffs would cause to the University. In an e-mail to academic chairs Dec. 6, Jaffe wrote that "the final list [of cuts] will be developed in early January, and the actions will be communicated to the affected individuals sometime around the third week of January. Changes will be effective approximately Feb. 1." Jaffe said yesterday the list of layoffs would be finalized this week or next. "We're still looking at how we would manage without these people," he said. "Until we're sure that we can deal with the situation that we create by laying somebody off we're not going to lay them off."
Replacing the previously mandatory University Seminar program with an optional First-year Seminar and increasing the sizes of language classes will allow professors to teach other required classes and will reduce the need for adjuncts, Jaffe said. He added that he is reviewing every department's need for adjuncts: "If there are courses that really have to be taught, they will be taught, but for courses that are more optional, if we would have to hire someone from the outside to do it, we probably won't be doing it."
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Ashton
posted 5/11/09 @ 11:51 AM EST
Is this a good thing or bad thing? Aren't smaller classes better?
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