Graduate student senators pondered Ohio University budget cuts last night as the body listened to a presentation by the vice president for Finance and Administration.
Stephen Golding came to Graduate Student Senate to update the senators on university-wide budget cuts.
“I have done this now for about 30 years,” he said. “Budgets are all about tradeoffs. A budget discussion is always about tradeoffs, and if we can keep that importance, then we can have a really meaningful conversation about what tradeoffs are acceptable.”
During the meeting, questions were raised about the faculty buyout plan. Starting yesterday, OU faculty and staff members can now accept an early retirement or voluntary separation plan.
Christine Pirot, the graduate student senator for the Center for International Studies, asked how the buyout plan would fit in with the upcoming quarter-to-semester change.
“I can think of at least one professor that is taking the buyout that is a very valuable asset to the university,” she said, adding that they would have probably waited another year to retire prior to the quarter-to-semesters change.
“We should extend the proposal for another year to keep the valuable faculty here,” she said. “We need students to speak up because this is an impossible issue here. New professors are going to start with the semester change, so why not just wait?”
Deadlines for accepting a buyout option range from June 30 this year to June 30, 2012.
“The reason we made the retirement offer for only one year as opposed to two years is because we were taking into account that many faculty would be making that quarter-to-semester decision separate from the buyout,” Golding said.
OU could still rehire some of the faculty that are planning on retiring through the buyout plan, he said.
“We could hire them back on a group three contract if they wanted to teach a course or two,” Golding said. “The thing is that with these buyouts we can lose some very valuable professors that we don’t want to lose, and so we try to provide some degree of flexibility for them.”
Golding said that group three contracts would not be just for one year, and any faculty would have the option of renewing it year-to-year.
The senate did not hold a quorum last night; there were no resolutions on the table.
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