A year after the UNC system eliminated about 900 positions across the state, President Erskine Bowles is warning of an even more severe series of cuts this year.
If the UNC system is asked to cut another 5 percent from its budget this year, about 1,000 jobs will be lost, and half of them will be faculty members, Bowles told members of the UNC system's Board of Governors Friday.
But the UNC system isn't being asked to make that cut. The current expectation is a 2 percent cut, which would amount to $52 million across the system.
The larger number comes from the Office of State Budget and Management, which weeks ago asked state agencies to prepare 5 percent cut scenarios - a common exercise in tight economic times. The eventual number could be higher, or lower.
But after eliminating 935 positions last year, most of which were administrative, on orders to reduce $294 million in spending, Bowles said Friday he believes the UNC system has done its part.
The UNC system could handle another 2 percent cut, as is expected. Any more, Bowles said, would be disastrous.
"It will do substantial and sustainable damage to the quality of education we can offer," he said. "There's a lot for us to be concerned about."
Bowles and other UNC system leaders protected the academic side in large part last year by focusing almost exclusively on administrative positions, gutting middle management and reducing or eliminating more than 100 centers and institutes.
Cutting faculty is another matter.
At N.C. State, officials have tried to grow the faculty in response to a continuing surge in enrollement, said Randy Woodson, who is in his first week as NCSU's new chancellor.
"It's the wrong direction," he said of faculty cuts. "You make career investments in faculty, so decreasing the size is a very difficult thing."
Comments
Penny for your thoughts?
Fri, 04/09/2010 - 21:48 — wowthatsignorantPenniless, thank you for your well-researched and thought-provoking comment and suggestion. I wish more policymakers would base decisions on unverifiable generalities that they could comfortably "submit" to others without the inconvenience of facts or logic.
While you tear down the research efforts of scholars at one of our country's top higher education institutions, you give readers a vivid glimpse of the quality of discourse we would enjoy in your preferred reality.
Perhaps if your own schooling had taught you how to support broad, vague assertions with data, you could have developed skills that would have left you employable and saved you from your penniless status.
Get real
Fri, 04/09/2010 - 21:18 — Real_Americans_ThinkIt may come as a shock to penniless taxpayer, but some of the UNC schools are research oriented and thus are not purely teaching operations. The research oriented schools produce new technology and information to help NC stay competitive. So, if you want to cut back on that, fine, but accept the consequences. Another consequence is that the 100M's in grant money that faculty bring in on their initiative will go bye bye. This grant money helps to fund student assistantships and obtain state of the art equipment. The results from research also translate into the classroom. If you want stagnant 1950s education, sure, do away with things that faculty do outside the classroom.
penniless, Or, they could
Fri, 04/09/2010 - 21:16 — PhantomLordpenniless,
Or, they could just fire the highest paid 10%. You know, stick it to those evil rich people like they want to do to those in the private sector.
Here's a workable solution
Fri, 04/09/2010 - 17:46 — penniless_taxpayerMost of those university professors are grossly overpaid for the amount of work they do. I submit to you that they do less than 10 hours of work per week related to teaching. The remainder of their time being invest to their own benefit in research.
So here is a workable solution: Let's have a temporary across-the-board pay cut of about 10%. You know, fair-share sacrifice in the tradition of the socialism that is so widely taught throughout the UNC system.