The College of Arts and Sciences at Ohio University, like all of the colleges, is working to close a 7 percent budget gap by February.
Colleges essentially operate internally. Financial review meetings are between the provost, chief financial officer and college representatives. That allows for communication between budget planning constituents, but not all employees are included in that, which has led to misconceptions about planning the budget, Faculty Senate Chair Joe McLaughlin said in an Oct. 16 Faculty Senate meeting.
"We all understand that tough budget decisions will be necessary, but if programs of recognized excellence are severely undercut just because their budgets look like obvious targets, the result will be the egalitarianism of mediocrity," Mark Halliday, an English professor, said in an email.
With 4,734 total students in fall 2016, the College of Arts and Sciences is the biggest college at OU, so 7 percent of that college's budget equals more money than the same percent would be in other academic units. As a result, many of the college’s programs have taken a “huge hit” from budget cuts, Gradin said.
In 2008, the college’s English and Nanoscale and Quantum Phenomena Institute programs were deemed centers of excellence, Halliday said. It seems that programs that have received more funding in the past are more vulnerable to “debilitating cuts” in coming years, he said.
“We’re sort of, at least in Arts and Sciences anyway, getting some real mixed messages ... from President Nellis (about ideas for research) but we’ve just been told that our centers of excellence, the graduate programs and several of our disciplines have been restricted,” Sherrie Gradin, the Promotion and Tenure Committee chair in Faculty Senate and an English professor, said.
Based off budgets within the college, it is considering making cuts to its graduate programs, history department and creative writing program.
“All the deans are pacing about the circumstance,” Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences Robert Frank said.
Annual reports from deans are necessary for budget planning. They project budget changes based on the university’s $20 million in unallocated funds.
Financial review meetings are held so the administration understands the financial standings of academic units, because each unit controls so much of their own operations, Associate Provost for Academic Budget & Planning John Day said. Those meetings also help representatives understand each unit’s impact on the university's budget.
“(The administration is getting information) from the colleges now at these review meetings so we have knowledge of both what’s possible … and the impact of those changes,” interim Executive Vice President and Provost David Descutner said in an Oct. 16 Faculty Senate meeting. “We’ll try to put a number together by mid-November (that) will lead us to trying to establish the kinds of changes, which will flow into the … meetings in February where everybody comes back with an answer.”
