Campus meeting focuses on possible faculty cuts

Southeast Missouri State University may eliminate some teaching positions as a budget-cutting move, school officials say, and just how that would be done is at the heart of campus discussions this fall.

Possible budget-balancing moves were discussed at a campus meeting on Wednesday conducted by university administrators.

Some 200 people, mostly faculty and staff members, attended the more-than-hour-long meeting in the University Center Ballroom. The meeting was the second of four campus forums scheduled over a three-week period. The final two meetings are scheduled for next week.

Biology professor Allen Gathman said cutting full- or part-time faculty positions is the only way that the university can significantly cut academic costs.

"The big money is in faculty salaries," he said.

Gathman said the only real savings would come from cutting teaching positions, which would mean an increased course load for remaining faculty or larger class sizes or both.

Gathman said he would favor increasing class sizes slightly. "I would take some more students in my classes," he told school officials at the meeting.

He estimated the university could cut three full-time instructors from among about 400 faculty members and save $125,000 in salaries and benefits.

School officials hope to save $325,000 in academic cost-cutting moves that could include consolidating some academic departments, reorganizing colleges and eliminating some faculty positions. Academic and non-academic moves combined could save the university about $500,000 this fiscal year, school officials estimate.

Plan goes to RegentsKen Dobbins, Southeast president, and his top administrators are working to fashion a cost-cutting plan to present to the Board of Regents on Oct. 18.

School officials, so far, have looked at a variety of options including eliminating academic programs with few majors.

Provost Jane Stephens said there are seven programs that each have fewer than 50 majors. They are economics, anthropology, sociology, geography, philosophy, geosciences and physics.

The university could consider keeping only the basic-education courses in those majors, she said. That would eliminate one or two faculty positions per program, Stephens said.

But she and other university officials have so far resisted that idea, insisting its important to have such programs on campus.

Stephens said some tenured faculty could lose their jobs if entire academic programs were eliminated during this financial emergency prompted by state funding cuts.

John Holbrook, a geosciences professor, said the university needs to consider students' academic and career needs, not just the financial bottom line.

"We do have a certain responsibility to the region," he said.

The university, officials said, has already made up $4.5 million through a tuition increase and cost-cutting moves including delays in filling vacant positions, cuts in equipment purchases, deferred maintenance and elimination of some staff positions, mostly through attrition.

Besides possibly eliminating academic programs and consolidating some departments, the university has discussed:

Eliminating some dean positions and returning displaced deans to faculty positions

Eliminating the University Studies basic education introductory course

Involuntary furloughs

Charging faculty and staff members $25 per semester to park on campus

Ivy Locke, vice president of business and finance, said a one-day furlough of approximately 890 full-time faculty and staff in late December could save the university about $160,000.

But Gathman objected to the idea, saying it amounts to a pay cut and would set a bad precedent.

Likewise, he objected to paying for parking, calling it "a sneaky way" of cutting faculty and staff pay.

Dobbins, Southeast's president, agreed. Such a parking fee, however, would generate about $50,000 a year, he said.

But Dobbins acknowledged there is little support for such a move at Southeast.

mbliss@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 123

WHAT'S NEXT

Additional Southeast Missouri State University budget meetings have been scheduled for 3:30 p.m. Sept. 9 and 13

Both are scheduled for the University Center Party Room