Official: BRRC duty moral i
■ ■ — POLICE REPORT-1
Across-the-board
alternative exists
to 2-percent cuts
By Adeana Leftin
and Jeremy Fitzpatrick
Senior Reporters
The Budget Reduction Review
Committee has a moral, not a legal
duty to suggest cuts totaling 2 percent
from the University of Nebraska
Lincoin’s budget, an official said.
Thomas Zorn, BRRC chairman,
said that accord- D| .n^CT
ing to bylaws, the dUDGcT
committee was
not legally re
quired to suggest
2 percent budget
cuts to the Aca
demic Planning Committee.
But, he said, there is “a moral
obligation on our pan to view these
proposals seriously.”
The BRRC is the result of last
spring’s Nebraska Legislature man
date that UNL cut its budget by 2
percent this year and 1 percent next
year. The committee must review cuts
suggested by UNL vice chancellors
and make recommendations to APC.
If the BRRC does not suggest cuts
totaling 2 percent, Zorn said several
options may be pursued. Across-the
board cuts might be made, or the
entire process could begin again, he
said.
The BRRC also formed a subcom
mittee Wednesday to set up its No
vember schedule and to set a time
limit on how long units have to re
spond to new budget information.
John Peters, dean of the College of
Arts and Sciences, said it was impor
tant for the committee to set up a
schedule that shows who gets to re
spond to the committee on what, and
when.
Zorn said that in the interest of
lime, the subcommittee should report
to the BRRC as soon as possible.
In budget hearings Wednesday,
officials from the Institute of Agri
culture and Natural Resources testi
fied before the BRRC on the crop
production and poultry nutrition re
search and teaching programs.
Under the IANR’s original budget
reduction proposal submitted to the
BRRC Sept. 9, the crop production
program would lose five faculty
members, and the poultry nutrition
research and teaching program would
be eliminated.
Robert Shearman, head of I ANR’s
agronomy department, said a reduc
tion in the crop production program
would be detrimental to UNL and to
Nebraska.
“Reductions in the crop produc
tion program could not be less timely,”
he said. “We face a growing list of
challenges that must be addressed by
our crop reduction facility.”
Shearman said no undergraduate
students would be affected by the
cuts. Graduate students would be
affected, he said, because the five
faculty slated for elimination serve as
advisers to graduate students.
Tom Sullivan, an animal science
professor, argued against eliminating
the poultry nutrition program.
He said that the program is impor
tant because Nebraska’s poultry in
dustry is expanding and that other
alternatives existed for reductions in
the animal science department.
Cuts
Continued from Page 1
Vchcmcni objections arc being
raised even earlier in the process this
time around, and both Benson and
Liberty said they’ve tried to deter
mine why.
They settled on two explanations:
Tenured faculty weren’t in jeopardy
in previous recommendations, and the
process used by each of the vice chan
cellors in determining what cuts to
propose this lime was viewed as un
savory by many.
Desmond Wheeler, a UNL chem
istry professor who was involved in
the processes in 1986 and 1987, first
as president of the Faculty Senate and
then as a member of A PC, agreed
with their assessment.
“There were really very few jobs
actually threatened in either of those
go-rounds,” Wheeler said, “and cer
tainly no tenured jobs on the line.
When faculty positions arc threat
ened. that’s really what gets people’s
attention.”
But the process appears to be get
ting comparable criticism, Liberty said,
even though it is much the same as
that used in 1986 and 1987.
The changes that have been dis
puted by others as well as himself, he
added, focus on what preceded the
viccchanccllors’presentation of their
proposals to the BRRC.
-44 -
There were really very
few jobs actually
threatened In either of
those go-rounds, and
certainly no tenured
jobs on the line. When
faculty positions are
threatened, that's really
what gets people's
attention.
Wheeler
UNL chemistry professor
--tt -
Liberty said the lime frame for the
vice chancellors to gather informa
tion about each of the colleges was
lighter than in the past; they had be
tween mid-June and Sept. 9 to gather
data and present it to the BRRC.
Previous processes began during
the academic year, not in the sum
mer, and stretched over a longer pe
riod of time, he said.
“The longer the vice chancellors
have to deal with gathering of infor
mation is a tremendous advantage in
developing an understanding of what
it’s all about,” he said.
•The means they used to gather the
information was also different, he said.
Liberty said that in 1987, the vice
chancellors based their recommenda
tions in part on a ranking system the
deans of colleges used to evaluate
their programs. The recommendations
the vice chancellors made came from
those programs that were ranked in
the lower third of the deans’ evalu
ations.
“I didn’t use that type of quantita
tive decision rule,” Liberty said. “First
of all, because the deans didn’t think
it was valid to compare department X
with department Y when they may
have entirely different objectives
within the mission of the college.”
Instead, Liberty said, he asked the
deans to bring forward an ideal con
struction of the college under various
resource constraints. Deans also pro
vided some evaluative information to
indicate where the department stood
in the spectrum of other departments
within the college.
From that point on, the process
was basically the same as that in 1987
and 1986, Liberty and Benson agreed.
But that doesn’t mean there’s not
room for improvement.
“We’re spending an awful lot of
time, it’s a very stressful situation,”
Benson said. “There’s got to be a
better way to do it.”
Speech
Continued from Page 1
said the department is ranked nation
ally among the lop 25 programs, and
that its instructional communication
program is ranked in the lop 10.
He also denied that there is a na
tional trend of eliminating speech
communication departments.
Seiler cited a letter he had re
ceived from James Gaudino, execu
tive director of the Speech Communi
cation Association based out of Vir
ginia.
The letter states: .. I can report
no evidence that our office has re
ceived from any source to support the
claim that elimination of speech
communication departments is a na
tional trend. In fact, all of the evi
dence we have received supports an
alternative conclusion.”
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