Archived from September 13, 2006
This summer, the Rutgers Board of Governors approved a universitywide budget that includes $50 million in cuts, affecting virtually all academic and administrative operations at Rutgers. These reductions have led departments across the university to take potent and far-reaching measures to cope with the cuts and maintain the quality of a Rutgers education.
The state budget adopted in July left Rutgers with a $66 million shortfall in state funding, the largest in university history. Other mandatory cost increases took the budget shortfall to $80 million. The result thus far is the cancellation of approximately 450 course sections, the phasing out of six intercollegiate varsity sports, 185 layoffs or eliminated positions, and a reduction in services and delayed improvements to campus facilities.
The board also established tuition, fee, and room and board rates for the 2006-2007 academic year. Total charges for a typical in-state undergraduate student living on campus will rise by 6.7 percent. Tuition for most in-state undergraduates will increase 8 percent, to $7,923 for the coming year. Out-of-state tuition will rise 10 percent. Due to inadequate state funding, tuition at Rutgers has increased more than 65 percent since fiscal year 2000.
“The board would have preferred to keep the increase in tuition lower than the 8 percent that most undergraduates will see,” board chairman Albert R. Gamper said. “However, the severity of the cuts in state funding means that tuition increases are necessary to protect academic programs and student services from even more serious cuts.”
Departments across Rutgers have taken some far-reaching measures to absorb the cuts and to maintain the quality of their programs. Even so, for many departments it will mean increasing workloads, raising class size, and giving up fundamentals – even telephones.
Despite unprecedented layoffs administrators sought to hold on to popular programs in an effort to maintain employee morale.
“We didn’t want to reduce programs that staff feel good about,” said Sandra Russell, associate vice president for human resources. Russell said her department made some sacrifices to preserve annual events such as the staff and faculty service luncheons and the President’s Recognition Program for staff. “It would be the wrong time to take away those kinds of things. We did not think that eliminating them would be a smart decision.”
In addition to several layoffs, Russell said, human resources will close the UHR Training Center in the Livingston Campus trailers and relocate it at the new Administrative Services Building on Route 1. That move will save about $50,000 annually, Russell said.
The School of Arts and Sciences in New Brunswick significantly reduced its budget for part-time lecturers and annual faculty, resulting in about 100 course sections being cut over the fiscal year, according to Michael Beals, dean for educational initiatives at the school. Many of the classes were “pre-canceled” in anticipation of the budget cuts, meaning students never got to register for them. Beals said that the School of Arts and Sciences should see few classes canceled outright. Students whose course sections were canceled have been notified via their MyRutgers homepages.
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.”
News
The impact of the state budget
Credit: Nick Romanenko
Instructional budgets took a big hit when realities of the state budget cuts set in. Reductions in teaching staff mean students have fewer courses to choose from and larger class sizes; part-time lecturers and faculty have more work; and many students might not have basics, such as blue books for taking exams.
The state budget adopted in July left Rutgers with a $66 million shortfall in state funding, the largest in university history. Other mandatory cost increases took the budget shortfall to $80 million. The result thus far is the cancellation of approximately 450 course sections, the phasing out of six intercollegiate varsity sports, 185 layoffs or eliminated positions, and a reduction in services and delayed improvements to campus facilities.
The board also established tuition, fee, and room and board rates for the 2006-2007 academic year. Total charges for a typical in-state undergraduate student living on campus will rise by 6.7 percent. Tuition for most in-state undergraduates will increase 8 percent, to $7,923 for the coming year. Out-of-state tuition will rise 10 percent. Due to inadequate state funding, tuition at Rutgers has increased more than 65 percent since fiscal year 2000.
“The board would have preferred to keep the increase in tuition lower than the 8 percent that most undergraduates will see,” board chairman Albert R. Gamper said. “However, the severity of the cuts in state funding means that tuition increases are necessary to protect academic programs and student services from even more serious cuts.”
Departments across Rutgers have taken some far-reaching measures to absorb the cuts and to maintain the quality of their programs. Even so, for many departments it will mean increasing workloads, raising class size, and giving up fundamentals – even telephones.
Despite unprecedented layoffs administrators sought to hold on to popular programs in an effort to maintain employee morale.
“We didn’t want to reduce programs that staff feel good about,” said Sandra Russell, associate vice president for human resources. Russell said her department made some sacrifices to preserve annual events such as the staff and faculty service luncheons and the President’s Recognition Program for staff. “It would be the wrong time to take away those kinds of things. We did not think that eliminating them would be a smart decision.”
In addition to several layoffs, Russell said, human resources will close the UHR Training Center in the Livingston Campus trailers and relocate it at the new Administrative Services Building on Route 1. That move will save about $50,000 annually, Russell said.
The School of Arts and Sciences in New Brunswick significantly reduced its budget for part-time lecturers and annual faculty, resulting in about 100 course sections being cut over the fiscal year, according to Michael Beals, dean for educational initiatives at the school. Many of the classes were “pre-canceled” in anticipation of the budget cuts, meaning students never got to register for them. Beals said that the School of Arts and Sciences should see few classes canceled outright. Students whose course sections were canceled have been notified via their MyRutgers homepages.
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.”