I hope that you had a restful break and that your semester is beginning well. There are many issues related to the budget situation in the state that I wanted to update you on. That will be the primary focus of this note. However, there are a couple of other items that I thought you might find to be of interest.
Notable Accomplishments
The Board of Governors approved the official enrollment report at their January meeting. After all the data were cleaned, WCU and UNC-G both had average SAT's of 1039. ECU improved to 1025 and UNC-C dropped to 1056. Therefore, it is clear that we are continuing to move up in relative positioning with regard to other campuses. This is the first major accomplishment and I hope that you all are seeing a difference in the qualifications of the students in your classes.
This academic year we will continue to reposition the University with regard to entering student qualifications. However, we made a very big shift in market position last year, so I would anticipate that any improvement in entering student credentials would be more modest. These changes seem to work best when they are iterative and allow the high schools to understand the nature of our repositioning. We will, however, continue to improve our academic position.
Improving the background of the student who enters the University should help us increase our retention rates. Improving retention remains an important part of our development. To better connect admissions and retention activities, I have asked Vice Chancellor Sam Miller to work closely with admissions to better structure the high-school-to-college transition. I also have asked Dr. Miller to work more closely with Provost Carter to assure that we retain increasingly strong academic links to admissions. During the spring semester, we will explore formally re-structuring the reporting and supervisory relationships with admissions to see if we can more effectively and efficiently recruit larger classes composed of better-prepared students.
Fred Hinson will continue to supervise admissions and the other offices in academic student support. Fred has done an exceptional job of more fully implementing our admissions and retention models and we need him to continue that work.
The second notable accomplishment involves U.S. News recognizing the improving quality of the University. WCU is tied for 14th place as the Top Public School in the South among Master’s Universities. Like you, I do not put a great deal of stock in rankings, but it is valuable from a marketing perspective that your hard work is receiving such recognition. The "south" in their conception runs from Louisiana to West Virginia, so there are many public universities of our general type in that region. As we continue to improve our admissions standards and our retention rates, we should see this ranking continue to improve.
This Year's Budget Situation
If you have been following the news, you will know that Governor Perdue recalled an additional one percent of this year's budget. That means that we are dealing with an annualized reduction of 6 percent. The Office of State Budget and Management anticipates that the situation with regard to tax revenues will continue to worsen and we have been told by General Administration to prepare for a 7 percent annualized reversion.
Over the next two weeks, Provost Carter or Vice Chancellor Wooten will communicate with you regarding specific actions that we are taking to address this year's short-fall in revenue. It is probable that we will suspend nearly all non-faculty searches, limit travel, and only buy equipment that is needed on an emergency basis. I will be meeting with the Executive Council early in the week to discuss their recommendations. Leadership within each division has made recommendations regarding possible actions, and we will review those recommendations as a part of the process.
Planning for Next Year
The budget situation next year presents a different set of issues with which we need to deal. This year's call-back represents "one time" reversions. The University can handle much of this by suspending one-time purchases and limiting travel, etc. As we plan for next year, we are dealing with "permanent cuts" in the state budget. I have asked each division to plan for an 8 percent permanent cut. I have been working with the executive team and the deans to assure that we focus the cuts most appropriately. I have asked them to focus on several priorities as we move forward:
1. Regardless of their length and depth, economic downturns do end. It is critical that we come out of this situation as a stronger, more focused institution.
2. We must focus on institutional quality as defined by our responses to UNC-Tomorrow and our QEP.
3. We must maintain a sound and balanced educational program that is consistent with the functions and responsibilities of the institution.
4. To the extent possible, we will not cut budgets across the board. We will use targeted approaches to budget cutting.
5. We must maintain the quality of the student experience to the fullest extent possible.
6. To the extent possible, we must maintain faculty development funding. The only way we can improve academically is if the faculty continues to improve in quality.
7. Because we are currently under-staffed in IT and in accounting/budgeting functions, we need to maintain funding in those areas if possible.
8. We need to once again look at our organizational structures to assure that we increase efficiency and effectiveness and reduce duplication. I have asked Provost Carter to again examine the colleges and academic support offices. Likewise, I have asked the Vice Chancellors and the Chief of Staff to review their areas for possible reorganization for efficiency and reduction of positions.
9. Institutional programs (not just academic programs) that are not core to institutional mission, that lack effectiveness or that have missions that overlap with other programs, need to be considered for elimination.
10. Where it is possible to define national or system efficiency standards, we need to assure that each area of the University meets or exceeds those standards. This includes many areas that are being reviewed by President Bowles' PACE initiative. To the extent possible, when an area does not meet those standards, we should use attrition to reduce the number of jobs in those areas.
11. Every position that becomes vacant should be frozen and then reviewed to determine if it is mission critical. If it is possible to distribute the work formerly accomplished by that position to other people on campus, the position should be eliminated.
To begin the process of preparing for next year, I have eliminated the unfilled position of director of the Millennium Campus. Alan Thornburg was to take on that responsibility, but as you may be aware, he has been appointed to the 28th Judicial District Superior Court bench in Buncombe County and has left the University. I also have eliminated the position formerly held by Alan. The workload for development of the Millennium Campus will be redistributed. Kyle Carter and I also have re-organized Institutional Research and Assessment and created the Office of Institutional Effectiveness. The Director of Institutional Research position and a clerical position were eliminated in this process.
There are two positions that must be filled. Because of the importance of increasing diversity, I am allowing the search for the Equal Opportunity Officer to go forward. Similarly, because of Bil Stahl's announced intent to retire, I am allowing the position of Chief Information Officer to be filled.
In higher education, we tend to talk about "positions being eliminated." It is important that we all realize that what we really are talking about are "jobs". We will be reducing the number of people employed on our campus. This will have an impact on our county and local region. There will be fewer WCU employees to shop in local stores, to buy houses, or to donate to local charities. Hopefully, this downturn will be shorter than expected and we can again offer jobs to people of the area.
A Note on Fund-Raising
One question that was asked during the town hall meeting last fall involved the potential for replacing state funds with privately raised funds. Generally, it is not an option. Very few donors will give money for basic university operations. Donors most often have interest in scholarships, professorships, buildings, or similar items. It is generally expected by donors that the university is basically solvent and that their funds can be used to increase the margin of excellence. Most private colleges that have had financial difficulties and tried to raise funds for basic operations have failed. Public sector institutions would most likely find resistance to funding basic operations even more intensely than would the privates. Therefore, our best options involve working together to assure that the institution remains strong during this most difficult time.
Please let me know if you have any further thoughts on how we should proceed with reducing our budget for next year. Be assured that we will follow all required processes throughout the implementation of budget cuts. I will continue to keep you informed as we move through the process.
Despite this situation, I hope that you have a rewarding semester.