The U is a still operational8212;but a heavily burdened and slowing machine8212;after budget cuts.
Budget cuts forced the U to lose 14 teaching positions, according to the Utah System of Higher Education. To compound the problem, Barb Snyder, vice president of student affairs, reported at the August Board of Trustees meeting that the undergraduate class has grown by 600 from last year and there are about 200 more graduate students.
The new arrivals will have to fight for the same number of classes that accommodated last year’s smaller population.
No tenure positions were lost, but remaining full-time faculty are covering more core classes, and surviving adjuncts are taking on more sections of peripheral classes just to keep something similar to last year’s class schedule.
“The ones that are left, they’re discouraged,” said Marilyn Cox, administrative manager at the College of Social and Behavioral Science.
Besides losing faculty or cutting classes, colleges hired fewer adjuncts, cut expenditures such as voice mail, reduced payroll for remaining professors and put hiring freezes on all vacant positions. For instance, the College of Engineering cancelled at least 10 new hires it would have used to accommodate the growing student body. The College of Social Work brought in clinical social workers who have taught for the college before to cover the classes four retiring professors left behind.
“We always try to keep our instructional house in order,” said Francis Brown, dean of the College of Mines and Earth Science. “We’re here for the students, and they pay for it, so by God we better provide it.”
The colleges of engineering, pharmacy, architecture and business raised tuition for full-time students by several hundred dollars, and the colleges of law and medicine raised it several thousand dollars to ensure that they could offer the same number of classes as last year despite the cuts.
The other colleges weren’t so lucky. If any classes had to go, it was non-core classes that had the lowest enrollment, Cox said. Brown’s own college cut one class8212;Petrography-Genesis8212;because only three students were enrolled. There were better ways for Brown, the class instructor, and his students to spend their time and money, he said.
Besides the handful of faculty and adjuncts lost to the budget cuts, the U is also short nearly 200 support staff, including construction workers, gardeners, janitors and secretaries. Their absence means maintenance and operations are going to move like molasses.
“Things are going to work more slowly,” said Paul Brinkman, associate vice president of budget and planning. He said checks will process slower, construction could slow, faculty are picking up work that the secretaries would have done and the U could get dirtier.
This year’s frustrations are only preludes to an impending nightmare. Stimulus money softened the blow of this year’s budget cut from 18 percent to 9 percent. Next year, that cushion disappears.
“The majority of the budget is payroll,” Brown said. “If we actually have an 18 percent cut next year, the impact will be devastating.” It’s not very nice, but it’s simple, he said.
“We’re not done cutting,” Cox said.
Jamie Bowen and Rachel Stuart contributed to this article.