CPB Position on the Budgetary Crisis
The Council on Planning and Budget believes that in this time of financial difficulties and potentially severe cuts, the Senate must come together behind a clear position on budgetary issues. The following statement is our best effort at articulating such a position.
1. We uphold the principle that administrative cuts, if
needed, should be made outside the core teaching/research mission of the
University. In particular, with regard to cuts in the allocation to
“administration and libraries,” the library’s core functions must be
protected.
2. Both the faculty and the students of the University must
be made aware of the fact that, without increasing student fees to make them
commensurate with those charged by other major public universities, the
3. We endorse a program of differential fee increases for
professional schools, proportional to the economic benefits they confer on their
graduates. A formula should be established whereby a portion of the additional
fees generated by these schools is shared with other academic units,
particularly the
4. Professional schools should be encouraged to develop
fully funded executive/ professional programs, which provide resources that can
be used to defray part of the schools’ core costs.
5. We support the establishment of a regular, formalized
calendar for the planning and budget process, including a policy that holds all
units accountable for their plans and for adherence to them.
All units should be required to provide annual strategic plans or updates
to the administration and the Budget Council. Strategic plans are not only
beneficial to the university’s resource allocation process, they are also
instrumental in providing the Senate with an objective basis for its input to
the dynamic of shared governance. This is all the more pressing in a time of
budgetary crisis.
6. Although we are opposed to one-size-fits-all formulas, we
welcome greater transparency and rationalization of faculty workload, which has
until now been determined by a set of uncoordinated local “cultures.”
7. Faculty should be encouraged--and helped where
necessary--to aggressively seek external sources of funding in the form of
grants and gifts for research and fellowship support. This has particular
relevance in areas where faculty may be unfamiliar with the grant process.
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