Ax wielded by HSU's deans
Times-Standard 5/2/07
”This is a substantial deficit -- we've been overextending our budget, essentially,” said Rick Vrem, HSU provost and academic affairs vice president, at a Tuesday emergency meeting of general faculty organized by the Academic Senate.
The College of Natural Resources and Sciences will be cut $650,000, the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences will be cut $800,000, and the College of Professional Studies will cut $540,000 over the next three years to meet President Rollin Richmond's budget, the colleges' deans said.
”At this point I've done all the squeezing I can do and should do,” said Robert Snyder, interim dean of the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences. He said on top of larger class sizes, fewer courses and the elimination of the German program, 2.25 staff positions will be cut.
Even with all the reductions, $260,000 over the next three years still needs to be shaved from Snyder's college, which, in part, could happen by not hiring tenure-track professors in the 2008-2009 and 2009-2010 years, he said.
The College of Natural Resources and Sciences will lose eight full-time faculty and lecturers, and about $310,000 will be saved over three years from retirees, said James Howard, the college dean.
College of Professional Studies Dean Susan Higgins said two faculty members will be eliminated. She's also looking at options and majors to eliminate or move to extended education -- a self-supporting outreach department at HSU.
Higgins is hopeful that with a potentially large freshmen class -- Vrem said a record 1,350 have confirmed to attend next fall -- the university's financial picture will turn around. “We're just keeping our fingers crossed,” she said.
Other academic affairs areas, such as the library, information technology services and the common management system, will take hits.
The library, which will cut $195,100 over three years, will hold off on hiring a permanent dean for the 2007-2008 year and not fill staff positions, Vrem said.
Information technology services, which provides campus-wide computing and communications services, will have to take 25 percent from its budget -- $235,100 -- and cut 10.5 full-time positions, said Anna Kircher, ITS chief information officer.
She said students, faculty and staff can expect longer waiting times for computer equipment to be replaced or fixed, longer refresh cycles on equipment, some software axed from systems, and projects that ITS previously would have taken on won't have the needed staff or funding.
”We don't have the people and we certainly don't have the money to be doing some of the things we'd like to do,” she said.
Though the short-term future is looking dismal for HSU, Vrem said he believes HSU will grow and dig its way out of the money mess.
”This has been a very difficult time,” he said. “I think our future is brighter. Right now, though, it doesn't look like it.”
The question of when to add classes -- and hire lecturers to teach them -- if enrollment booms was brought up by Greg Crawford, oceanography chairman.
Vrem said if that occurs, he'd go to Richmond for additional money based on enrollment projections and anticipated money from student fees.