Deans plan for more budget cuts
College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences
The restructuring of departments and majors, in addition to the cutting of many lecturer positions, is what students in the College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences can expect over the next few years, said Yolanda Flores Niemann, the college’s dean.
While Niemann said students can expect the programs that currently exist to exist next fall, some departments are rethinking all the degrees they offer, and may consider dropping options that are less popular in the college.
“So if a department has a degree, for instance, with 300 students and four different degrees, and one degree only has 20 students, then maybe that’s something the department may not want to keep,” Niemann said.
Students will also see fewer lecturers, Niemann said. While the college will not lay off any tenure-tracked professors, lecturers are very vulnerable right now, she said.
This will leave many vacant classes in need of teachers, and to accommodate those holes, Niemann said the college is seriously thinking about hiring more graduate students to teach lower-level classes. This will open up more opportunities for students and save the college money, she said.
“We can bring in four graduate students for every one lecturer,” she said.
Niemann said the college is also working toward making languages its own department, although that will not come for a few years. There will also be an interim department head over the speech communications department and the journalism and communication department, until the merger can be made official, she said.
Niemann said layoffs and the consolidation of departments are the best way for the College of HASS to make up for budget cuts. However, Niemann has challenged all the professors in her college to write more grants which will bring external funds into the college.
There will also be fewer general education classes taught, and because HASS is the largest college on campus, this will leave fewer general classes available to all students across the university, Neimann said.
To combat these hard times, Neimann said it is important to get USU’s message out to the world, and show everyone that USU is an institution worth investing in.
“It is important to spread the word of all the great things happening at USU instead of keeping it a Cache Valley secret,” she said.
John M. Huntsman School of Business
While there are no specifics at this time, students in the College of Business can expect cuts in faculty members, programs and classes, said Doug Anderson, the college’s dean.
“You can’t take these kind of cuts out of the budget and not expect it to have an impact on students,” Anderson said.
While Anderson said he is not planning on cutting any departments, the College of Business is looking at the option of consolidating majors. Then, within majors, there is the possibility of consolidating options.
“So if there are three options, next year there may only be two or one,” Anderson said.
Anderson said he is unsure at this time which majors would be consolidated, if any, and may not know until the summer.
“One of the first things you have to do when making strategic cuts is you’ve got to see the world as it is, not as you’d like it to be, and the reality is we do not have the support from society to fund this university the way we did a year ago,” Anderson said.
Last year’s restructuring of the College of Business took them from a five-department unit to a four-department unit, which Anderson said has helped save money. During this maneuver, the college also experienced a physical restructuring to their building, which was renovated for the first time in more than 35 years, he said.
Plans for a new business building are also in the works, and will continue to stay a top priority in spite of budget reductions, Anderson said. The new building would be constructed in between the business building and 400 North where Lund Hall currently sits.
“We’re out trying to raise money for that right now,” Anderson said.
However, the poor economy is supporting a bad environment for philanthropy, and has resulted in not enough monetary support for the new building, Anderson said.
But this does not mean all forms of donations are suffering.
The College of Business is still receiving the $2.5 million gift from the Huntsman family, which they receive annually, Anderson said. This gift has not been affected by the weak economy or budget problems; however, the money can not be used to make up for the college’s 5 percent cut, Anderson said.
“That money can’t be used to offset the legislative cuts, but it can be used to continue with initiatives,” he said.
Right now the College of Business is putting many of their efforts and resources into international business and finance, Anderson said.
“We have a goal to become recognized as the top tier business school within 10 years,” he said.
College of Science
Despite a looming 5 percent budget cut, students in the College of Science will continue to see opportunities for participation in national competitions, said the college’s dean, Mary Hubbard.
There are many opportunities for students to attend science based competitions and conferences, something Hubbard said is a vital part of an individuals education, and something that will be protected during budget cuts.
The college will also continue to provide the community with the outreach lecture series, a program designed to educate Cache citizens about what is new and exciting in the field of science, Hubbard said.
“That is an example of something we started before the budget crumbled,” Hubbard said. “But I think it’s important enough we’re not going to let it go.”
However, there will need to be cuts, and central administrators in the College of Science are still mulling over where those cuts will be.
“There is no nice, neat formula where everything in the college fits in (according to necessity). We don’t say, ‘Oh, budget cut time, lets go to the bottom of the list; that thing is gone’ – things don’t work that way,” Hubbard said.
Hubbard said few faculty and staff in the College of Science took the early retirement incentive. This means there is a possibility of layoffs, and some positions which were left vacant over the year simply won’t get filled, Hubbard said. As a result, general classes such as math, which serves the entire university and not just science students, will see larger class sizes.
While professors may be moved around to accommodate empty spaces, Hubbard said students will not lose their majors, programs or departments, all of those will stay intact.
But budget reductions will not blow the College of Science off its feet, Hubbard said. State-funded dollars are only one portion of the college’s budget, she said.
Research grants are very competitive in the sciences, and Hubbard said they are a great support for the college. Private downers are another drastic component of the college’s budget, she said.
Hubbard said she also hopes the stimulus package, which put large sums of money into the sciences, will trickle down to USU. This will help fund many of the science based programs students have come to love at USU, she said.
“Our main goal in budget reductions is to minimize impacts to students; and I think all the deans are charged with that as an underlined goal,” Hubbard said.
–greg.boyles@aggiemail.usu.edu