LAS reviews academic priorities, finances

Due to the university's ongoing budget problems, Dwight McBride, dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (LAS), created an Academic Priorities Task Force to review the financial productivity of the college's departments and programs. "The goal of the Academic Priorities Task Force 2010 will be to inform LAS of the specific academic areas in which the college should continue to invest – to shelter to the extent possible from the present adversity and to poise for growth in future better times," Dean McBride wrote in a letter addressing the purpose of the Task Force. "The Task Force will gather information as needed to inform itself as to the intellectual and competitive strengths of each unit and program within LAS that supports LAS's academic mission in the broadest sense.

"The next fiscal year begins July 1, and there are no signs from the state that it will find the revenue to close the gaping budgetary hole now evident," the letter also said. "For the long-term future of the college, it is only prudent that LAS have a strong and well-thought out plan ready to enact."

In order to develop such a plan, the Dean organized a number of faculty members into three subcommittees to interview each LAS department. As detailed in the June 15 2010 report of the Task Forces's findings, the Task Force held a total of nine meetings between January 25 and May 3, 2010. Its members interviewed department heads about their programs, budget information, the number of undergraduate and graduate degrees granted by each department, and the number of faculty in each department. They also received individual recommendations from LAS faculty and staff.

"I believe the dean wanted to have a venue in which faculty could have some input into the deliberations on how we should manage the challenge presented by declining state support," said Senior Associate Dean Jessica Williams, one of two representatives of the dean's office on the Task Force. Williams described the Task Force's recommendations as "advisory at this point" but said that after further consultation the dean's office will formulate an implementation plan. Next month the Task Force's findings will be presented at the first LAS Faculty meeting to allow for more general discussion.

The Task Force reached several important conclusions during its research. Most significantly, the Task Force found that they could not justify eliminating or merging any of the departments. "The goals were to look at every department and every educational program, analyze their strengths and weaknesses, and find out if there were ways to make two programs or departments more efficient by merging them. So we looked at all of them, and one of our major conclusions was that there was no department that was so weak that it should be eliminated or merged with some other department," said Eric Gislason, Emeritus Professor of Chemistry and the non-voting chair of the Task Force. "There are no weak links in the college."

The Task Force also concluded that the college must admit more students. "It is imperative that the college maintain and, if possible, increase enrollment," the committee members wrote in the introduction of the Task Force report. Because of the way the campus funds colleges, with every credit hour earned and every major chosen in each college resulting in a certain number of dollars, an increase in enrollment would lead to a subtantial increase in the college's income. More students would mean increased pressure on certain area of campus, such as lecture halls. Since most lecture halls are already packed during morning and afternoon hours, LAS would have to hold more classes during the late afternoon or at night to accommodate the extra students. Regardless of other similar changes that would have to be made, Gislason firmly believes an increase in enrollment would "overall be a moneymaker for the college."

Gislason said that so far he has witnessed only positive reactions to the Task Force's report. However, there is some dissatisfaction brewing about some of the Task Force's recommendations. Professor Dick Simpson, head of the Political Science department, is unhappy with their conclusions about the International Studies program. "Their recommendations about the program, which is housed in the Political Science department, are not good," Simpson said. "Essentially what they want to do is destroy it, or move it somewhere in outer space to make it better. What they don't understand is that it is costing almost nothing to run the program. It is a priority of a university to be a true global university, and this program needs to be strengthened, not either destroyed or moved back into a vacuum."

Some of the other suggestions in the report were written in such vague language that it is difficult to tell just what their repercussions might be. Other recommendations, if taken seriously, will no doubt result in unfortunate consequences for the college. The report suggets that the Writing Center should scale back some of its offerings to reduce its financial pressures on the college. While the suggestions to develop new tutoring approaches and actively seek new funding sources are reasonable, it is likely that their recommendation to charge a special fee for the First-Year Writing will not be well-received. The report also suggests that as faculty retire in the Classics and Mediterranean department, the department should strengthen the "Mediterranean" part of its program in areas such as Islamic and Jewish studies, which seems to imply that students in the Classics area of the department may be eventually left out in the cold.

Still, troublesome suggestions aside, Professor Gislason is confident that the dean has been making the right decisions during these difficult financial times. "It's tough being dean of LAS at this moment, with the budget situation being what it is. He did absolutely the right thing in my opinion, in setting up the Task Force," Gislason said. "But now we've come back and we don't really have any grand schemes for him to save enormous amounts of money. He's still faced with real tight fiscal situations. One thing we say in the report is that we now have a much better appreciation for how difficult his job is."