Ohio University's Faculty Senate plans to vote tonight on a resolution asking the university to prioritize academic units when making budget cuts at its first meeting of Winter Quarter.
Prompted by senate discussions about the level of funding for academic versus non-academic costs, the original resolution - presented in November - called for zero academic cuts as the university looks to make up an $11 million deficit. The Finance and Facilities Committee adjusted the resolution's wording in an effort to acknowledge budgeting is more complex than simply academic and non-academic units.
As we started to understand how the university spends money and also budgets money
it's clear that you can't easily say that some budgets are entirely academic and some budgets are entirely non-academic said Scott Titsworth, committee chairman. We felt it prudent to not oversimplify that in a way that could very much be disadvantageous to everyone involved.
The version faculty will discuss tonight calls for a presumption in favor of preserving academic programs and for strict adherence to Faculty Handbook procedures for budget cuts that impact faculty.
Although Titsworth said some senators might not like the resolution's general language, he thinks senate should make a statement on budget principles before pushing for specific choices.
We're not yet at the stage where we're talking about specific funding for specific programs or specific decreases for specific programs he said.
The resolution would require the provost's signature to take effect, something Titsworth hopes will be easy to get.
It seems clear to me that there's nothing in it that anyone would disagree with that's a faculty member or a student or administrator at an institution of higher education
he said. It sure looks to me like it's something that a lot of us could agree upon at this point.
Senate will also hear presentations tonight from OU's president and provost on strategic priorities, academic restructuring, budgets and their recent international travel.
There are two additional resolutions on the Senate's agenda, one on drop/add deadlines under semesters and another correcting inconsistencies in the promotion and tenure process.
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Emily Grannis
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