Dissecting the Rhetoric of the Hughes Memo

I'm done with finals, so now all I have to do is stay on top of the Fogel Administration, I guess. Lucky for me John Hughes sent out a new memo today detailing how much of the $3.2M of the Pathetic Reinvestment Plan was actually going to which college in the university.

I will say this. Thank you, Provost Hughes, for giving us this information. And then I will say this, too. How about taking a freaking pay cut so that no one needs to be laid off?

Okay here's the memo with my editorializing:

As previously announced and subject to final approval by the Board of Trustees, the President and Provost have made $3.2 million available in the FY 2010 general fund budget for reinvestment in the academic budgets of the colleges and schools. The allocation of these funds has been informed by the April 29, 2009 Report on Budget Constraints prepared by Vice President Cate and Associate Provost Knodell based on meetings with deans, the April 13, 2009 Preliminary Fact Finding Report of the Faculty Senate Financial and Physical Planning Committee (FPPC) based on input from individual faculty, and by recommendations from the Academic Quality Assurance Task Force. Updated reports of the FPPC will be forwarded to the deans as they become available. The Task Force, a joint group of Faculty Senate committee members and senior administrators, reviewed the two reports and presented five principles and priorities to the President and Provost to guide their allocation decisions. This report presents the results of this process of consultation.

Read: Here's the people who we consulted about this. It was everyone except you.

There was a good deal of consensus between the two reports. A key finding is that, as a result of the budget reconciliation for FY2010 and efforts to reach target student-faculty ratios set for the various colleges and schools, more undergraduate course sections will be taught by full-time, tenure-track faculty and full-time lecturers. The size distribution of course sections has shifted somewhat to larger sections. Consistent with the recommendations of the Task Force, much of
the $3.2 million fund has been allocated to uses that mitigate the effect of higher teaching loads on scholarly productivity, that ensure adequate support for lab and discussion sections, and for clinical and field supervision, and that protect the quality of the first-year experience. The reinvestment allocations described below are all base funding increases, except in the case of the School of Business Administration, where one-time funding will be applied for FY 2010 and base funding for FY 2011 will be determined after a permanent dean is appointed. The specific instructional purposes of these funds will be determined by the deans in consultation with
the Provost.

Read: The only way we can pull of the targets that we thought were so awesome is by overloading faculty with courses and only teaching ginormous courses that suck for students.

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences: Due to the pressure of high enrollments and high student-faculty ratios in certain units, the reallocation will fund lecturers and offset base funding lost in the correction of a structural deficit in Extension, which provides some funding to this college. $190,000.
School of Business Administration: The reallocation will fund lecturers to maintain
important curricular offerings, deal with some class-size issues and stabilize the School’s operating budget. $200,000.
College of Arts and Sciences: The College will receive funding for a new college-wide
undergraduate teaching assistantship program, to assist faculty teaching larger sections of introductory courses. The College will also receive funding for its lecturer budget, which has grown to meet higher enrollments without commensurate new base resources. Some funding is also provided to assist with start-up packages for new faculty. $1,300,000.
College of Education and Social Services: The College will receive funding for lecturers to ensure adequate staffing for the supervision of education students in the field. $120,000.
College of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences: The College will receive funding for graduate teaching assistants to assist faculty with larger sections, and for a tenure-track faculty position in a high-enrollment area. $250,000.
College of Nursing and Health Sciences: To address concerns about program viability, the College will receive funding for three pools of part-time clinical faculty to provide supervision for nursing students, and for two tenure-track faculty positions to cover integral areas of the curriculum. $800,000.
Rubenstein School of the Environment and Natural Resources: The College will re-
ceive funding for lecturers to address staffing needs in several areas, including the Environmental Program. $330,000.
Honors College: The College will receive new base funding to restore the Summer Seminar and to consolidate programming in support of undergraduate research across campus. $20,000 in new base funding, plus $100,000 transfer from Arts and Sciences to support the HELiX program in its new configuration.

Read: Here's the amount of money that we'll put back into your colleges. You don't really know how much was taken out to begin with or what exactly was cut because we didn't feel like telling you. But here's a random number that people should be able to magically distill into fairies and rainbows. Also, Arts & Sciences, we're going to put most of your money into a scab labor force of unqualified undergraduates to take the place of the oodles of experts and professors that we just laid off. Cuz that's almost the same.

In addition to the $3.2 million reinvestment in the colleges and schools, the budget of the Vice President for Research and Dean of the Graduate College will increase by $750,000.

Uh... what is this?

So, the only thing I'm sparing you (because the formatting was getting getting all wonky) is a table about how oh-so-generously the University has actually raised the budget of each college's base budget this year. Okay, so a) what is the "base budget"? If you're always moaning about a budget gap, then obviously that's not the only money that matters. So, that's totally deceptive. But thanks. And b) If you're raising everyone's budgets then why aren't you sending 109 employees back to work? Please spare us the BS next time. I can find another hobby.