Archived articlepage from September 13, 2006
News
The impact of the state budget
The computer science department in New Brunswick/Piscataway is doing away with telephones for its faculty and graduate students. Many departments have chopped supply budgets, meaning that employees will have to buy their own pens and pencils and students won’t have blue books for exams.
The computer science department is not only getting rid of telephones for faculty, but also will decommission one of its three student computer labs because there is no money to repair or replace computers as they break, said department chair Haym Hirsh. “The kind of budget we now face is just outrageous, unheard of for a department at our level,” Hirsh said.
Fran Mascia-Lees, chair of the Department of Anthropology in New Brunswick, said her department is making deep sacrifices to avoid laying off staff or cutting faculty research budgets. The department will no longer pay for postage or telephone lines, its supply budget was cut in half, and association memberships were eliminated, among other reductions.
Mascia-Lees rued the implications. “There is no money to photocopy or purchase any materials for TA training and orientations for graduate students,” she said. “We cut our membership in the American Anthropological Association, which is a primary means of visibility for anthropology departments.”
The libraries will cut back on their operating hours by 109 hours per week at all libraries on the New Brunswick/Piscataway campus and additional hours in Camden and Newark. All the major libraries on the New Brunswick/Piscataway campus will close earlier in the evenings, and some will open later on the weekends. Some desks, such as the undergraduate reserve desk at Alexander Library and the welcome desk at the Douglass Library, will be closed. The library will stop purchasing dissertations to fill interlibrary loan requests and has canceled its subscription to the Ingenta article delivery service.
The budget cuts forced the library to eliminate the 24-hour, seven-days-a-week technical support for the system. Support staff will now be on-call via pagers, and system failures and problems at nights or on weekends will be addressed in three hours instead of immediately, said Harry Glazer, communications coordinator for the libraries. The number of student workers throughout the library system has been cut severely, and the New Jersey Reading Room in Special Collections will be closed on Mondays.
In Newark and across Rutgers, administrative units have taken the larger share of the cuts. To make up for a $6.6 million budget cut, more than 40 staff employees face layoffs in Newark, and approximately 29 full-time faculty appointments will be eliminated. “We have canceled several searches for tenured or tenure-track faculty that would have begun in fall 2006,” said Newark Provost Steven J. Diner. “The pain is very real.”
Camden officials had to mitigate the effects of a reduction of about $3.5 million. That led to 18 staff layoffs, numerous unfilled staff and faculty positions, reductions in course sections and operating funds. While administrative functions at Rutgers-Camden were already very lean, Provost Roger Dennis said, administrators did some restructuring to save money and preserve the core academic strengths of the campus.
“The academic advising, registrar, financial aid, and admissions functions have been restructured with an eye toward delivering these important campus services in an effective manner with fewer resources,” Dennis said of a key Camden response to the budget cuts. “This restructuring was done in collaboration with the academic deans.”
Tony Calcado, assistant vice president of university facilities in New Brunswick/Piscataway, said his department is losing more than 50 positions ranging from custodians to upper management positions. The $3.6 million cut to facilities will be noticeable across the board, Calcado said, with the frequency of trash pickup and grass mowing severed in half.
“For the most part, we will eliminate the planting of flowers,” Calcado said. “We used to answer nonemergency service calls within the same work shift. Now they will have to be answered over a 24-hour span. ... But our employees are dedicated, hard-working people. I know they will strive to meet the expectations of the university.”
The computer science department is not only getting rid of telephones for faculty, but also will decommission one of its three student computer labs because there is no money to repair or replace computers as they break, said department chair Haym Hirsh. “The kind of budget we now face is just outrageous, unheard of for a department at our level,” Hirsh said.
Fran Mascia-Lees, chair of the Department of Anthropology in New Brunswick, said her department is making deep sacrifices to avoid laying off staff or cutting faculty research budgets. The department will no longer pay for postage or telephone lines, its supply budget was cut in half, and association memberships were eliminated, among other reductions.
Mascia-Lees rued the implications. “There is no money to photocopy or purchase any materials for TA training and orientations for graduate students,” she said. “We cut our membership in the American Anthropological Association, which is a primary means of visibility for anthropology departments.”
The libraries will cut back on their operating hours by 109 hours per week at all libraries on the New Brunswick/Piscataway campus and additional hours in Camden and Newark. All the major libraries on the New Brunswick/Piscataway campus will close earlier in the evenings, and some will open later on the weekends. Some desks, such as the undergraduate reserve desk at Alexander Library and the welcome desk at the Douglass Library, will be closed. The library will stop purchasing dissertations to fill interlibrary loan requests and has canceled its subscription to the Ingenta article delivery service.
The budget cuts forced the library to eliminate the 24-hour, seven-days-a-week technical support for the system. Support staff will now be on-call via pagers, and system failures and problems at nights or on weekends will be addressed in three hours instead of immediately, said Harry Glazer, communications coordinator for the libraries. The number of student workers throughout the library system has been cut severely, and the New Jersey Reading Room in Special Collections will be closed on Mondays.
In Newark and across Rutgers, administrative units have taken the larger share of the cuts. To make up for a $6.6 million budget cut, more than 40 staff employees face layoffs in Newark, and approximately 29 full-time faculty appointments will be eliminated. “We have canceled several searches for tenured or tenure-track faculty that would have begun in fall 2006,” said Newark Provost Steven J. Diner. “The pain is very real.”
Camden officials had to mitigate the effects of a reduction of about $3.5 million. That led to 18 staff layoffs, numerous unfilled staff and faculty positions, reductions in course sections and operating funds. While administrative functions at Rutgers-Camden were already very lean, Provost Roger Dennis said, administrators did some restructuring to save money and preserve the core academic strengths of the campus.
“The academic advising, registrar, financial aid, and admissions functions have been restructured with an eye toward delivering these important campus services in an effective manner with fewer resources,” Dennis said of a key Camden response to the budget cuts. “This restructuring was done in collaboration with the academic deans.”
Tony Calcado, assistant vice president of university facilities in New Brunswick/Piscataway, said his department is losing more than 50 positions ranging from custodians to upper management positions. The $3.6 million cut to facilities will be noticeable across the board, Calcado said, with the frequency of trash pickup and grass mowing severed in half.
“For the most part, we will eliminate the planting of flowers,” Calcado said. “We used to answer nonemergency service calls within the same work shift. Now they will have to be answered over a 24-hour span. ... But our employees are dedicated, hard-working people. I know they will strive to meet the expectations of the university.”
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