Ongoing State-wide Budget Discussions
From: Robert N. Shelton and Meredith Hay
January 28, 2009
For many people in our community, proposals in the past few weeks to slash funding to public higher education have induced a sense of outrage. And rightfully so. Anyone who cares about the future of Arizona should be stunned and saddened by the shortsightedness of this approach.
There is no doubt that the proposed cuts, should they be enacted, would have a profoundly negative impact on our University. There is simply no way to sugarcoat that. But we write today because we want to assure each of you that we are doing everything possible to preserve and strengthen The UA despite these difficult times.
While it may seem a bit cliché, it is nevertheless true that the faculty are the heart of our University. It is the strength of our faculty that establishes our reputation as a premier international institution. Our entire University community - students, staff, visitors, alumni, donors, and supporters across the state - collectively benefit from, and are inspired by, the work of our faculty. Regardless of the outcome of the budget deliberations, we are committed to maintain a world-class faculty and to strategically invest in those core areas of greatness that will propel the UA into the coming decades.
The current budget crisis makes this a more challenging proposition, but through the Transformation Plan we have already begun to merge and consolidate administrative areas, and the recent creation of the Colleges of Letters and Science is a perfect example of the ways that we can reduce costs within our academic structure while maintaining the programmatic opportunities so central to our mission.
We are keenly aware of the very difficult economic situation that confronts our state, and have said from the beginning that The University of Arizona was prepared to do its part in helping the state manage the budgetary shortfalls. Gutting higher education is not the solution to the state's problems, and we feel that we have made good progress in recent days in helping key legislators understand this salient point.
Yesterday the Arizona Board of Regents voted to increase the flexibility that the individual campuses may have in dealing with the proposed cuts, and we appreciate their efforts to help us through this difficult time.
Furloughs are one option that was made available by the Regents. We hope to be able to avoid that approach, and to deal with the budget in a more strategic and long-term fashion, since the decisions that we make for this year will impact what we can or must do in the 2010 budget.
As we write this, we do not know what the final budget numbers will be. We do know we will need to make cuts, unpleasant as that is. But what we will not do is allow this temporary budget shortfall to undermine our long-term vision and commitment. The University of Arizona is one of the premier universities in the world, and we are determined to preserve the people and programs that will help The UA thrive in the decades ahead.
This is an anxious time for our country. All of us have family, friends or neighbors impacted by the economic turmoil. The University is not immune to the financial volatility that roils about us. But we can and should take comfort in the strength and resilience of our people; in our shared commitment to each other and the ideals that have made this University great, and will make it better still.