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EDITORIAL: Money-saving tactics key
Less focus on restructuring
Forum | 5/19/09
Posted online at 4:05 PM EST on 5/18/09
On May 4, the Curriculum and Academic Restructuring Steering committee released a supplemental report retracting its original suggestion to reorganize the American Studies, African and Afro-American Studies and Classical Studies departments into interdepartmental programs. Although there are several reasons that the revocation of this proposal was wise, we feel that the most troubling thing about the entire process was the CARS committee's failure to investigate the monetary results of the changes it initially wanted to make. The committee should not have had to wait for the community to question how much the University would save because of the proposed changes; rather, the committee should have investigated the money issues first before officially proposing any major restructuring at all.
Granted, the committee's research was excellent. The CARS report provided a detailed overview of each department's structure and assets. The rationales for transforming AMST, AAAS and Classics into interdepartmental programs were clear but lacking: Despite the details on how to broaden the disciplines and cut their resources, there was no hard evidence that substantial savings would result from these alterations. Why should such a drastic proposal pass without such crucial information?
Such important reports as this need solid plans with concrete answers to the question of how the University can successfully combat its budget deficit now and in the next few years. The theory behind the proposals to restructure AMST, AAAS and Classics was that these newly revamped interdepartmental programs would share faculty and cross-list courses. However, after the proposals failed, Dean of Arts and Sciences and chair of the CARS?committee Adam Jaffe said, "The new approach is that everybody is going to be doing that, so in theory, [maintaining the departments] shouldn't matter." If the University intended to use its resources like this in the first place, why bother to propose such major changes? The University should channel its efforts into researching more specific money-saving tactics rather than ill-considered mass restructuring plans in order to really be productive.
Granted, the committee's research was excellent. The CARS report provided a detailed overview of each department's structure and assets. The rationales for transforming AMST, AAAS and Classics into interdepartmental programs were clear but lacking: Despite the details on how to broaden the disciplines and cut their resources, there was no hard evidence that substantial savings would result from these alterations. Why should such a drastic proposal pass without such crucial information?
Such important reports as this need solid plans with concrete answers to the question of how the University can successfully combat its budget deficit now and in the next few years. The theory behind the proposals to restructure AMST, AAAS and Classics was that these newly revamped interdepartmental programs would share faculty and cross-list courses. However, after the proposals failed, Dean of Arts and Sciences and chair of the CARS?committee Adam Jaffe said, "The new approach is that everybody is going to be doing that, so in theory, [maintaining the departments] shouldn't matter." If the University intended to use its resources like this in the first place, why bother to propose such major changes? The University should channel its efforts into researching more specific money-saving tactics rather than ill-considered mass restructuring plans in order to really be productive.
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