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December 11, 2009
How to balance a budget
Sorry to have been so irregular about posting lately; circumstances have me down. Not only is it the end of the semester, that twice-a-year trauma for both them and us, but the broader world is catching up.
Part of getting tenure is an increased demand on professors for service. In a moment of public-spiritedness last year I agree to serve on the Committee on the Faculty (COFAC), which is the faculty committee past which everything that affects faculty governance, work conditions, and policy flows. Luckily a different committee has primary responsibility for academic and curricular things, but the lines blur a lot and plenty of things come before us, too. We meet fairly regularly with the president about this or that, and the provost is an ex officio member.
That would be quite enough, thank you very much, but in this time of fiscal crisis in most of higher education our local response includes a president's Budget Advisory Task Force (BATF). I'm a member. Let's just say that many, many of my dead relatives are springing from Purgatory weekly, and will continue to do so until April.
We're not engaging in massive layoffs like some folks, but we're using attrition. There's not a total hiring freeze - we have a couple of faculty positions that just have to be filled for the curriculum to go on ticking. We're even about to break ground on some new construction that raises some eyebrows - but when you have a targeted capital campaign gift and a bond that has to be spent down by a deadline you're kind of stuck.
People email the provost all the time with helpful suggestions - luckily I don't get a CC on all of them, just on enough to know from their time stamps that a lot of folks around here should be getting more sleep. I should be getting more of that myself.
Hey - if you know any bright children of rich parents who are looking for a scenic place to spend four years studying with a dedicated faculty, hand them my email address. Back to making the European Studies 101 final exam study sheet.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at December 11, 2009 7:55 AM