Conversations with the Colleges, October 26-27, 2009
October 29, 2009
Conversations with the Colleges 3
Reflections from the Provost's Meetings with Faculty from the College of Science and the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences
I write to provide the campus with an update on the third in my series of conversations with the faculty.
On Monday and Tuesday I met with small groups of faculty from both the College of Science and the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences. We met over the lunch hour on Monday in the Gould-Simpson Building and on Tuesday at Douglass Hall. As I did last week, I had asked the participants to submit topics or questions they would like to discuss during our time together. The budget and the future outlook of our finances for the University were our main topics, but we also covered quite a lot of other ground, including: how will colleges and departments begin discussions on how to do less with less; where should we continue to invest even during hard times; and finally, describing the progress of "Tuition Funds Flow" or what is now called "Budget Redesign" and how responsibility and decision making will be moving to a more decentralized model.
We started our discussions with a review of the University budget. As I've indicated in many previous communications, the funding for the University originates from many sources including State appropriations, tuition, grants and contracts, gifts, endowment and investment income, and auxiliary activities. At the beginning of this fiscal year which started July 1, 2009, our funding from the State was cut by nearly $100 million from $432 million in FY2008 to $348 million in FY2010. This loss has been devastating to our University and has threatened our ability to fulfill our mission. We discussed how we must, as a university community of scholars - the faculty, students, appointed professionals, and classified staff - all of us together, reinvigorate and recommit ourselves to the values that define the University of Arizona experience. What are the essential elements that distinguish the University of Arizona - including an extraordinary level of liberal arts scholarship and creative activity, a deep commitment to excellence in discovery and innovation, and a core commitment to our land-grant heritage and mission to serve and advance opportunities for the citizens of the State of Arizona? The question we must face together is: How do we make the bold decisions that will ensure that the quality of this great institution and the quality of the UA degree are protected over the coming years? How do we navigate through a declining state funding environment that will require us to move into a new revenue formula for our University - one more similar to many of our peers at other great flagship land-grant universities who have shifted from being predominantly state-supported institutions to relying by necessity more heavily on sponsored funds, endowments, gifts, and tuition revenue?
We also talked about the status of the "Tuition Funds Flow" (now called Budget Redesign) discussions and the progress of the faculty committees that have been meeting since the Spring of 2008. The first report from the committee was posted on the Provost's web site in August 2008 (http://provost.arizona.edu/files/Tuition_Flow_Task_Force.pdf). I strongly recommend that all university community members who are interested in this topic take time to read this document carefully. The faculty committee spent many months researching the subject and interviewing other universities that have moved to Responsibility Centered Management. This committee has offered clear and careful recommendations for moving forward with Budget Redesign. The fundamental issues and discussion focused on the lack of relationship between our budget model and our strategic plan and lack of incentives and funding mechanisms for interdisciplinary programs and team teaching. Further, the committee began discussions about how costs will also need to be allocated. Some of these costs pools are directly related to instruction (e.g., Honors College, Library, instructional computing), and others are supportive of these functions (facilities, utilities, grounds, human resources, and the central administration - including the President's and Provost's Offices).
The process of Budget Redesign will be one of the most complex and important budget discussions that the University of Arizona has undertaken. It will be a long, difficult, but worthwhile process to make significant changes in resource management. Such a major change in resource management will need to be transparent and to include input from multiple levels (administrators, faculty, appointed professionals, staff, and students). Continuous, clear, and straightforward communication with all stakeholders will be key to the transition in our budget model. Over the next year, the faculty-led Budget Redesign Committee will begin to meet with faculty, staff, appointed profesionals, and student groups from across the campus, SPBAC, Faculty Senate, Committee of 11, and many other groups to explain and discuss the process of Budget Redesign. I encourage each of you to be engaged in these discussions and invest your time to be involved in helping shape the future of this great University.
The University of Arizona is the premier research university in the State of Arizona. Our faculty, students, appointed professionals, and our staff are among the best in the country. The extraordinary quality of our degree programs, the excellence of our research, scholarship and creative arts continue to rank the University of Arizona as one of the leading research institutions in the nation. We are all stewards of this great University. We must continue to work together to ensure that the future of the University of Arizona is assured for generations to come.