Students doing research at the Marriott Library may have a hard time getting their hands on publications and periodicals next year.
In an attempt to cut costs, Marriott Library Director Sarah Michalak decided to cancel many paper subscriptions and replace some of them with electronic versions of the same publications.
The library, and every other department and program at the U, will face a 4.7 percent budget cut next year. A huge tax revenue shortfall forced lawmakers to cut state agencies’ funding until they balanced the state budget.
But now that lawmakers have handed over the slashed funds, department chairs and program directors must walk a tight-rope of scrutiny when deciding the fate of their programs and schools.
“For some time, I thought we were going to have to layoff some people,” Michalak said. “That would have been terrible.” U officials sent warning signals as early as last summer that prevented Michalak from having do so.
Heeding the administrator’s warning, Michalak left unfilled positions vacant and shifted office responsibilities around to other employees?freeing up salary money to be used in other ways.
But even with extra monies from salaries, the library will not escape these hard budget times unscathed.
Additional student fees, beginning next year, compensate for only half of the $300,000 cut to the library’s budget for periodicals and research publications. Michalak reported that although purchasing many of these publications electronically will save some money, it will not save enough. Some subscriptions will have to be cut, she said.
Next year, the library will also have to reduce its student staff by 10 to 12 employees.
For the bulk of U students, the base budget cut translates into a 9.3 percent tuition and fee increase?$142 per semester?forced on students to help compensate for the lack of state funding.
This increase will be used primarily for academic programming, said Dave Pershing, senior vice president for academic affairs. But the money will also go toward the U’s gas bill, faculty health and dental benefits as well as student financial aid.
For U Assistant Professor Brian Massey, the budget cuts will force a change in his teaching style.
In an effort to save money, the department of communication decided to pinch the policy that provided paper for the student computer labs.
For his advanced reporting class, Massey said he will no longer require his students to hand in hard copies of their articles. Instead, he will require the students to email assignments to him and he will then edit the students’ stories on the computer screen.
“It’s not that big of a difference to me,” he said.
U Communication Department Chairwoman Connie Bullis said the department may make other changes if the situation does not improve.
Without additional money, the department could also discontinue paying for faculty long-distance phone calls, reduce lab hours or eventually cut courses completely, she said.
The communication department will cut around $100,000 as its share of the 4.7 percent university wide reductions.
“It is a huge hit for us,” she said.
Other possible sources of cuts for the department are the service learning program as well as graduate student teaching salaries.
“This is getting to the point where every penny counts,” she said.
Dean of the College of Humanities Robert Newman said this pattern holds true for all the colleges at the U.
Newman said in the humanities college, the cuts are handled on a departmental level.
He added that most of the departments are doing what the communication department is.
“We’re trying very hard to maintain courses. If we have a position that is vacant, we may have to cut that position, but we are not going lay-off faculty and staff in this college,” Newman said.
But Pershing said not every college would be so lucky; there will be some non-critical personnel layoffs.
However, so far, deans of all the colleges have denied the possibility of layoffs.
“We can survive one year of strained budgets, but the question remains, ‘What will we have next year?’ We couldn’t survive another year like this,” said Steve Ott, dean of the College of Social and Behavioral Science.