I have it on good authority that several departments are looking at 2% to 5% reductions in budgets for next year. Visiting assistants are being shown the door and open tenure positions might not be filled.
Since SIUC's revenue per student is way up, does this track with reality? Are they paying for Morris Library and saving for the new football stadium with the extra money? Does it hurt SIU going forward? Maybe it is only a couple of departments?
Anyone got the real story yet? I was in Vegas last week and didn't see any administrators at the tables losing the money, so that is good news.
8 comments:
Peter,
You were having too much fun with the mayoral race and ignoring campus stuff.
This is no rumor. It has pretty much been public and has been Dunn's job since he became interim chancellor to ax between 2 to 6% from the colleges.
The numbers go something like this. About 3 million in new tuition revenue and another new 2 million designated for increased utility expenses. 3% salary increase for all staff amounts to 5 million and projected utility increase is close to 4 million.
5 million new revenue and 9 million expenditure increase, so the solution is to ax academics.
The ridiculous part is...some colleges will now have to turn away students 'cause they don't have enough teachers to offer the classes.
Certainly Administration is bloated, but don’t you think having 200 undergraduate majors and all that goes along with them, is simply insane? And yes, I realize that SIUC is not alone in this trend. However, this, and an unjustifiable brick and mortar program are THE reasons that tuition has significantly exceeded the CPI every year for the last 10 years.
Apparel Design (not to be confused with Fashion Design – see below)
Aquatics
Captioning
Cinema and Photography
Communication Disorders and Sciences
Court and Conference Reporting
Entrepreneurship
Family and Consumer Sciences
Fashion Design and Merchandising
Hospitality and Tourism Management
Leisure Services Management
And the list goes on…and on…and on...
There is a difference between a program and a department. Some of the programs mentioned by "anonymous) above are the reason students come to SIU-C. Unless SIU-C has instituted changes in the past few years, the degrees awarded for those programs will be in the name of the college in which they are granted. Education, Fine Arts, Business, etc. There are differences between majors, programs, concentrations, and the major academic units of departments and colleges. Administrative bloat is a systemic problem that is present beyond just SIU-C in Illinois universities. It is inexcusable and offensive to the taxpayers.
This is not new. The Administration has hit Colleges with 'give backs' several times in recent years.
The fact is, they don't much trust a lot of the colleges to spend their money wisely. In many ways, I can't say I blame them. What we are seeing - and have been seeing for several years - is a consolidation of money and power centrally.
So, is the justification for creating majors, programs, and concentrations (or whatever euphemisms one deems fashionable) based on the fact that it will draw "students"?
I have a simple question.
What is the stated purpose of the university? What is its overarching mission?
Anonymous said...
What is the overarching mission of the University?
Those universities recognized as "Great" have existed for at least several hundred years and many for a millinium or more. The "overaching mission" of such institutions has been to function as Cathedrals of the Culture and cradles of development of the next generation of leaders. SIU-C tends not to be cut of that cloth. SIU-C seems to need to do better with what it has, to once again find it's way and capitalize on it's best assets. The static inertia of SIU-C and Southern Illinois in general is a liability of significant historic proportions. Once upon a time SIU was noted for finding unmet opportunities and persuing excellence. Lately it has been chasing band wagons with slow salukies (and the athletes of SIU are excluded from that analogy-Go Dogs!)
Senior GTAs (graduate teaching assistants) are getting the axe, in favor of recruiting new graduate students. The reasoning is that the senior GTAs will finish up anyway, since they're so close to their PhD or MS or MA degree. In the meantime, teaching quality will drop even more, as SIU bulks up the number of inexperienced teachers in charge of classes, many of whom do not have faculty mentors nor regular classroom observations from departmental staff.
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