UNCG warned cuts may be harsh : News-Record.com : Greensboro & the Triad's most trusted source for local news and analysis

GREENSBORO — UNCG Chancellor Linda Brady did not mince words last week when she explained to her board of trustees the effect a 15 percent budget cut would have on the university.

“These cuts will have devastating consequences for UNCG,” she told them.

Brady on Friday told the campus community just how devastating: The university stands to lose more than 200 full-time faculty and staff positions, 44,000 seats and 1,070 course sections.

That’s a 32 percent reduction in the university’s instructional capacity, Brady said.

“I am very concerned about how cuts of this magnitude will affect the ability of students entering in fall 2011 to find courses, and for our returning students to make progress toward their degrees,” she said in a message Friday to faculty, staff and students.

Brady did not provide specifics about how many of those 200 positions were filled.

She did say she was “seriously concerned” about how the cuts would affect student affairs; research and economic development; graduate studies; business operations and facilities; campus safety; information technology; and university advancement.

UNCG is also reviewing programs and services within academic and student affairs to identify those that could be reduced or eliminated, with that money reallocated to save class sections and seats.

A similar review of the university’s academic programs is under way.

The budget Gov. Bev Perdue proposed cuts 9.5 percent from the UNC system, but President Tom Ross asked chancellors to prepare plans that would address a 15 percent reduction.

That means UNCG’s budget would be slashed by $26 million.

“Obviously, an additional $26 million would be over and above what we have taken in the last several years, and it’s important to have a historical perspective on the cumulative impact of the cuts,” Brady said during an interview last week.

UNCG sustained permanent cuts of more than $9.6 million to its budget between the 2007-08 and the current academic year, as well as another $39 million in one-time cuts and reversions during that same time period, Brady said.

Programs such as freshman seminar, which the university counts as a major initiative in student retention , were cut by about 30 percent last year.

Counseling positions have been reduced by 25 percent in the last couple of years, and the university has eliminated 67 full-time faculty and staff in the last four years.
UNCG’s Student Government Association president, Katie Marshall, has been privy to budget discussions because she sits on the board of trustees.

“It’s just hard to see that it’s going to be reality,” said Marshall, a senior communication studies major.

“Some part of me just wants a magical force to come in and fix everything, but this is the budget situation that we have to deal with.”

Marshall said the administration has done a good job of sharing information with student government officers, who in turn have made sure the rest of the student body understands the impact.

She said she would hate to see the university cut academic programs. “I don’t want students to not have the classes that they need,” she said.

Brady said a university committee has approved a policy to let students substitute courses if they are in danger of not graduating on time due to certain courses being canceled.

The university has also temporarily abandoned its search for another administrator, a chief diversity officer and associate vice chancellor for equity, diversion and inclusion, a job for which UNCG recently interviewed finalists.

Brady said that she made the decision after discussions with her staff, trustees and Ross, but that she might reconsider once the budget outlook is clearer.
UNCG in the next few weeks will discuss the budget plan with faculty, staff and students and get feedback.

The plan will be presented to the university’s trustees at their May meeting.

Contact Jonnelle Davis at 373-7080 or jonnelle.davis@news-record.com

onetrickydude

March 26, 2011 - 4:52 am EDT

Why don't they ever get rid of the "highest" paid people instead of the ones that weren't being paid enough.

The_Doctor

March 26, 2011 - 2:52 pm EDT

Agreed. The little people always get slapped whilst the bigshots get away with their cushy positions intact. As to "why," I think we all know why. Bigshots can protect themselves, but the little peons can't.....and they always pay for it with pay cuts or job losses.

notoriousBLOG

March 26, 2011 - 7:41 am EDT

My goodness! With all those cuts how will they ever find enough people to fill all those new buildings? Seems that the chancelor has her accounting degree from the same school that the federal government employees attended. I think that I would like an independent audit of these projected "cuts".

snapandwhistle

March 26, 2011 - 2:12 pm EDT

The School of Education building was funded and planned before the economy tanked. One article I read said, "The construction start carries an economic benefit. State economists estimate that every $1 million spent on a construction project results in 36 new jobs, and for each dollar spent on a project, $2.28 is pumped into North Carolina’s economy." Another article said that the timing of the project (which was needed now more than for future growth) was to be completed ahead of time and $12 million under budget.

gsofossil

March 26, 2011 - 2:41 pm EDT

For each dollar spent $2.28 in pumped into NC economy? Get real. One can see you are a viral promoter.

As for the 36 job, they are jobs taken by construction workers who work for a contractor. Most if not all are hispanics with work visas. Remember the fiasco with the visa workers (plumbers, electricians et al) on the newest dorm that sits on the corner of Aycock and Spring Garden? Yes it was finished on time, but when inspection came, no licences could be found and the university had to place all the students elsewhere until the building could be brought up to code.

Creating jobs is a good thing especially when you are hiring Americans that are out of work - not hispanics with working visas. Go down to the job sites now, both of them across the street from one another. You will find a site boss passing along instructions to a site translator and the translator passing the word along to the visa workers. Dont say UNCG or the state has nothing to do with this because they have every right to ask about the personel the company will be using and the people coming to work on the campus.

March 27, 2011 - 5:31 am EDT

I'm not sure what you mean by being a "viral promoter." I am just part of the alumni from UNCG who think that what UNCG does is worthy of investment. And you have every right to go down there and apply for one of those construction jobs. Nothing is stopping any unemployed person from applying for those jobs.

So, are you saying that the State should only allow contractors who will not employ Hispanic workers to build State funded buildings? Any other ethnic groups you want excluded from employment?

March 26, 2011 - 5:29 pm EDT

I just read your reprisal. You are either an employee of UNCG or an employee of state government because as you stated: (State economists estimate that every $1 million spent on a construction project results in 36 new jobs, and for each dollar spent on a project, $2.28 is pumped into North Carolina’s economy." ) there has never been a dollar printed that should not be spent. Well I do hope that you are happy paying your taxes because there will never be enough money collected to keep up with the spending.

March 27, 2011 - 5:20 am EDT

And you must be a billionaire with your massive vault of economic wisdom. I am a State employee and proud to have obtained two of my degrees from UNCG. I earn my pay every day, work far more than 40 hours per week to make up for the shrinking staff, and pay taxes like everyone else.

UNCG is one of the largest employers in the county and student dollars spent at local businesses help Greensboro's economy. Building new buildings and renovating old ones is necessary to fulfill the demand for the quality education that UNCG has provided. The bottom line is that UNCG did proper planning and based its decisions on the given situation at time they were made. The building was one that had to be built at some point, and the $12 million savings (which I got directly from budget legislation that was passed) was at least some small benefit that came from the tanked economy.

The cuts that have been proposed will be audited, just like every other State dollar spent or not spent. If you think that government should spend NO money at all, there are plenty of countries you can live where the governments are not organized enough to collect taxes and spend nothing to the benefit of the population. Maybe you should consider moving to one of them.

1234

March 26, 2011 - 8:31 am EDT

How about getting some of the academic employees to teach more than two classes a week and go to there offices more than a couple hours a week...there are now multiple (2-3) employees doing what one person did in the past, reverse from the private sector...how about digging in deep and finding out what people do for their pay...why is UNCG paying their own Police to patrol outside of the campus boarders, when GSO PD was doing a fine job for years in the neighborhood...it is all overhead in the business world! In the 1960's there were like 7 or 8 campus police officers with supplemental students working desks...how many are in the PD now? Don't cut classes, make the profs teach more!

Panacea

March 26, 2011 - 12:09 pm EDT

There are three kinds of faculty: teaching faculty, adjuncts, and research faculty.

Teaching faculty have a set number of face time hours per week with students in the classroom. A full time professor on the teaching faculty will teach 3-4 courss per semester, usually 1-2 freshman level courses (intro level courses) and 2 upper level (juniors and seniors) or graduate level courses. Then they have committees they serve on, and other campus related duties. They usually have about 5 office hours a week, split up Mon-Fri.

The thing about office hours is, students often don't take advantage of them. I'm in my office LOADS, and students rarely come even though I encourage them to. I usually don't see them until the semester is already over and there is nothing more that I can do, even though I've given them written notices that they are in trouble and should do X, Y, and Z (and they seldom do X, Y or Z much less all three).

Adjuncts are part time faculty who work half time and get NO benefits. Most college faculty are adjuncts now, because they are "cheaper", and don't get tenure . . . but the over use of adjuncts is partly why higher education is having problems now (though not because the adjuncts are lazy or don't want to teach; many of them teach at several colleges to get full time hours). They have office hours too, but not as many because they are not paid for it.

Research faculty's primary job is to do research. They usually teach one class, if that. Their work with students is in the lab. Research brings prestige and money to universities, so many institutions push faculty out of the classroom into research to bring in those dollars . . . weakening the academic mission.

In short, the professors are teaching all they can.

March 26, 2011 - 2:56 pm EDT

Panacea is absolutely correct. People shouldn't shoot their mouths off about university faculty until they know the facts about higher education and its faculty. Some professors are, indeed, freeloading bums, but they are a tiny minority. Most faculty are not the wastrels people want to believe that they are.

clay

March 26, 2011 - 4:24 pm EDT

Yeah, right.

igliigli

March 26, 2011 - 4:25 pm EDT

Please name the professors that you claim are slacking. I have known many UNC-CH and NCSU professors and all full-time professors worked at least 40 houirs a week and most worked 60 plus hours a week. The only ones that did not 40 hours a week were contract part-timers.

March 26, 2011 - 4:27 pm EDT

Yeah, name the professors so one can be sued for libel.

March 26, 2011 - 7:41 pm EDT

Put up or shut up. It's a valid question. It's not libel if it's true.

Samdog

March 26, 2011 - 9:24 pm EDT

I agree. The information needs to be false (and usually malicious, as well) to be libelous. The problem is, too many people form opinions based on anecdote and hearsay rather than provable evidence. The majority of professor are dedicated and committed to their work and their students. Unfortunately, we all know what one bad apple can do....

Mick

March 26, 2011 - 9:24 am EDT

Wasnt there an article last week about a 200 million dollar expansion? Must be a differant UNCG I guess.

March 26, 2011 - 2:03 pm EDT

An expansion that has self generating payment from rent and fees, not tax-payer money. What is bad about that? I'm stumped as to why people base their opinions on what they see in the headlines without even bothering to read the article.

eggsngrits

March 26, 2011 - 9:27 am EDT

Why do jobs like these exist? How much coddling of one special group of people is necessary? Where does it read in the state constitution that one class of people needs cradle to grave breast feeding? Social Welfare is bleeding the taxpayer dry.

ringo

March 26, 2011 - 12:30 pm EDT

Amen!

You'd be hard-pressed to find any institution that bends over backwards more (and then some) to ensure fair and equal treatment under the law than a state run university. Totally BS positions and waste of taxpayers money--admissions and student affairs administrators are quite capable of ensuring 'diversity' and fair treatment, and I'm willing to bet they're already doing a fine job of this.

mxded

March 26, 2011 - 9:53 am EDT

When the university is losing 200 faculty and staff positions, when the chancellor is acknowledging she is “seriously concerned” about the quality of education the students at UNCG will receive, one wonders how the athletics department has been able to add more and more administrative positions.

At last check, at UNCG, there were 12 “athletic director” positions, with at least one more soon to be hired, for about 200 student-athletes. When the budget cuts leave the chancellor concerned that the university will not be able to offer enough classes for students to progress toward a degree, adding more and more middle management to athletics seems awfully irresponsible and a terrific case of misplaced priorities.

Then again, when, in her previous job at Florida State, UNCG's Director of Athletics oversaw one of the largest academic scandals in college athletics, I guess it shows where her priorities lie.

Tough economic times for the university…I hope they have the right people in place to get through it.

March 26, 2011 - 4:30 pm EDT

The UNC Schools should remember their mission is education, not sports and get rid of all coaches and sports teams.

batshalom

March 26, 2011 - 10:01 am EDT

1234, in 1960 what we now know as UNCG was still Women's College. It wasn't until 1963 that it turned into a coed facility. Additionally, there were 18,500 students (undergraduate and graduate) enrolled at UNCG in 2010. I am positive that this is many times the number of students enrolled there in the 1960s. As for faculty duties it will probably surprise you that most faculty (unless they are on sabbatical, which is paid for by the third-party money the professors generate through grants) do far more than teach 2 classes.

Professors may only teach 2 undergrad classes, but professors have to do more than teach. They have many duties that you don't know about unless you're around it. Even teaching 2 undergrad classes is enough to take up 8 hours a day in lesson planning, grading, student meetings, answering student e-mail, preparing exams and quizzes (etc. etc. etc.). On top of that, most are responsible for mentoring at least one graduate student if not more, which is yet another full-time job.

Professors do NOT make a huge salary for being professors. If they are fortunate enough to have grants supporting their research they can earn additional money, but this is money they earn on their own and has nothing to do with the university paying them more. Most professors also have to publish in peer-reviewed journals or perish in academia and this cannot be done overnight (in fact, the process can take months). Grant submission - which is not guaranteed to generate funding - also takes many months. Research goes on around the clock, sometimes through the night depending on what kind of research it is. You can't force cells to divide, for example, only when it's convenient to your schedule.

All of these duties take copious amounts of time, and it is rare indeed to find a professor who does not work at least 12 hours per day, plus weekends. Just because YOU don't see them doesn't mean that they aren't working. In fact, if you don't see them, it probably means that they probably ARE.

March 26, 2011 - 4:26 pm EDT

Wow. What courses do you teach at UNCG?

March 26, 2011 - 7:42 pm EDT

Why do you act as if that's a crime?

March 26, 2011 - 11:19 pm EDT

Thank you for the compliment but I am not a professor, an instructor, or a lecturer, nor do I hold a position at any university or college. I am a student.

Bosco

March 26, 2011 - 11:48 am EDT

Is Brady's salary being cut? No need to answer

March 26, 2011 - 11:49 am EDT

Is the big house on Sunset Drive being sold? No need to answer

March 26, 2011 - 1:56 pm EDT

UNCG doesn't own that house, the Bryan Foundation does. Do you even do any research before you post things? No need to answer.

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