For almost a decade, Ohio University has gone through the painful ritual of annual budget cuts. At least in the academic area, these cuts typically were done across the board to the point where nothing is left to cut unless people are being fired. Due to severe reductions in state subsidies and increasing expenses, the university now is facing budget shortfalls of $15 million for 2010-11 and another $15 million for 2011-12.
Should we care? We have survived other cuts, so why the excitement? Well, it looks as though it's getting ugly this time. The harsh budget challenges that confront OU represent the risk the proposed cuts into academic programs will increasingly sidetrack the university from its academic mission. Larger classes, fewer programs, overworked staff and faculty, less attention to student needs and more deferred maintenance on the physical plant could be the direct consequence of these cuts.
On the other hand, the challenges also offer faculty, students and administrators an opportunity to pull together as a community, redefine our institutional purposes and culture and to become a stronger academic community. The odds are against us, though. OU is ill prepared for the challenge. During a period of many years, increasing busyness, weariness and other factors have diminished community coherence at OU, just as they have at institutions throughout the country. The most simple and probable outcome of budget cuts is not more determined commitment to our highest priorities, but a long spiral of incremental weakening of all our functions, and the emergence of feuding coalitions of us vs. them.
FutureOU, an informal group of OU faculty, Student Senate and the OU chapter of the American Association of University Professors, will hold a public forum for faculty, students, staff and other OU community members Friday from 2 to 4 p.m. in Walter 135. The forum begins a total, all-campus dialogue about OU's ongoing budget challenges to encourage informed and wise decision-making. Geoff Buckley from the Department of Geography and Student Senate President Robert Leary will moderate the conversation. The forum will focus on our priorities as members of the OU community and discuss questions such as:
- What kind of community do we want OU to be?
- What kinds of activities and what community qualities should we be most determined to preserve?
- And what are we willing to do without in order to preserve what is most important to us?
Community fragmentation under financial stress is natural and easy, but not inevitable. The alternative is careful, reasoned, community dialogue aimed at achieving consensus on difficult decisions. We believe that the OU community - faculty, students, administrators, staff, alumni - can achieve a reasonable, committed consensus, but it cannot happen either spontaneously or by top-down decision. It will require difficult, honest dialogue. That's why we are calling the community together for this meeting, which we hope will be the first of several.
We invite everybody to come to the public forum from 2 to 4 p.m. tomorrow in Walter 135.
Bernhard Debatin is an associate professor of
journalism and member of FutureOU.
4 Opinion
Letter to the Editor
