FACULTY FOR THE RENEWAL OF PUBLIC EDUCATION: Recent reporting on the impact of the budget cuts

Saturday, May 8, 2010

Recent reporting on the impact of the budget cuts

The Daily has been publishing some excellent stories on the impact of the budget cuts.

- the impact of cuts on adjuncts and the course offerings of the Department of Music see:

http://www.mndaily.com/2010/04/28/school-music-faculty-face-job-loss

- Save our Schools' and Chop from the Top's People's State of U forum:

http://www.mndaily.com/2010/05/03/people%E2%80%99s-state-university

- the decline in the proportion of tenure track faculty - the Daily notes that "According to analysis performed by The Minnesota Daily on faculty data obtained from the University Office of Institutional Research, the number of non-tenure-track faculty at the University has increased 15 percent since 2003. This increase has been mirrored by a 20 percent drop in the number of tenure-track faculty. Overall, the University added 409 faculty over the past seven years, but there are only 510 tenure-track faculty now, compared to 559 in 2003."

http://www.mndaily.com/2010/05/03/u-trims-budget-tenure-track-faculty

- The decline noted in the above article is likely to continue--21 professors will be retiring this year. It is doubtful that the U will fill these vacant positions with tenure-track faculty. CLA has already announced that it will leave 40 vacant position open.

http://www.mndaily.com/2010/05/04/positions-may-go-unfilled-after-faculty-retirement

1 comment:

Mr. B.May 13, 2010 at 5:11 AM
Budget cuts do not appear to have inhibited the Morrill Hall Gang's zeal to create a new kingdom for its cultural czar, however. The Regents are being asked today to commit to an $80 mil re-engineering of Northrop! (Note that this is not just bringing it up to code, which I support and would cost half that.)

The hyperbole being used to support this project is truly over the top, please see:

http://ptable.blogspot.com/2010/05/re-engineering-of-northrop-auditorium.html

For example:

"Engaging the people of Minnesota with the world’s leading public figures and change-makers who will challenge us to consider and engage in the most pressing issues of our time."

"The convening place where the greatest minds in the world routinely share innovative ideas and creative work."

"Using new technologies to provide a global platform to engage leaders from around the world and connect the University with global audiences."

Certainly sounds like the writing of OurProvost who earlier said:

"As many of you realize, we live in a knowledge-based economy in which our fundamental mission as a University must be deployed in service of the broader transnational learning process." Provost Thomas Sullivan, November 19, 2008

This abomination was signed by:

Putzenreuter, Sullivan, O'Brien and Rosenston.

Certainly gives one a lot of confidence in the proposal, doesn't it?
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As the administration has come to dominate instead of to serve the university, intellectual and educational values have been displaced by market ones like "efficiency" and "productivity." Faculty and students have been commensurately marginalized in the governance of the institution. We do not say that the university ought to be inefficient or unproductive, but we do demand that values central to scholarly and scientific inquiry and education be restored to the center of the university's endeavors, including (indeed, especially) the management of its finances. Our efforts have a fivefold focus:

1. Governance. The university should be governed by those who carry out its mission of teaching, research, and public service. At present faculty have little meaningful role in making decisions that are handed down from central administration. This state of affairs results from manifold causes, faculty in generations gone by having ceded governance responsibilities to an ever-growing body of administrators. We the faculty must resume our proper role in making, rather than merely reacting to, the decisions that govern our work and our workplace.

2. Transparency in budgeting. The administration should make all information about the university's finances, including expenditures as well as revenue sources, readily available to the public in comprehensible form. At present it is difficult or even impossible to find out how the university spends most of the funds at its disposal, effectively prohibiting people without privileged access and knowledge from scrutinizing the administration's allocation of financial resources. (N.B.: All these resources are public funds once they enter the land-grant institution's coffers.) We recommend an independent audit to open the university's budget to such scrutiny.

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4. Workload. The administration demands greater "productivity" from faculty and staff at the same time that it reduces the resources we need to produce anything and increases the burdens that hamper our work. If resources are withdrawn, our workload must be reduced, not increased. We do not want to do less teaching or less research, rather, we demand that unfunded mandates handed down by the administration be eliminated. Meanwhile, adequate support must be provided to enable efficient and productive work.

5. Integrity of the university. We reject the notion that the university can somehow achieve excellence by cutting programs, faculty positions, and curriculum. All disciplines and all modes of inquiry are interrelated, whether directly or distantly; to excise one element affects others, and ultimately damages the whole. This principle of intellectual integration is encapsulated in the motto of the University of Minnesota, commune vinculum omnibus artibus, which is a phrase derived from the argument of Cicero that the study of poetry is essential to a career in law. To unbind the arts from one another, as if any form of human inquiry can stand in isolation from every other, violates not merely the motto but the principle of the University's existence.

FACULTY FOR THE RENEWAL OF PUBLIC EDUCATION

Saturday, May 8, 2010

Recent reporting on the impact of the budget cuts

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