| MTSU considers cutting faculty, furloughs |
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By: MICHELLE WILLARD, Post Staff Writer
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Posted: Tuesday, February 10, 2009 2:29 pm
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Full-time professors at MTSU could have to work more in the future.
This is just one of the many suggestions coming from university President Sidney McPhee’s “Positioning the University for the Future” initiative.
McPhee released interim reports Monday detailing the work done so far to trim down MTSU’s budget by 20 percent in fiscal year 2009-10.
“I am pleased to report that we have reached an important milestone in the process for identifying how we will address critical budget issues here at MTSU,” McPhee wrote in reference to the interim reports.
Along with revolutionary ideas like getting alumni to donate more and conserving energy, the workgroups have also suggested eliminating a librarian, taking WMOT-FM off the air and restructuring other departments.
Eliminating temporary faculty in certain departments where full-time professors teach fewer classes on average could save the university more than $2 million a year, economics professor and Academic and Instruction Review (AIR) Workgroup Chairman Charles Baum wrote in the AIR interim report.
The proposal could cut up to 65 temporary teaching jobs in departments across the university. Departments looking at the biggest cuts are math, English and history, with most of the cuts concentrated in the college of liberal arts.
The AIR workgroup also suggested furloughing professors one day per month for a savings of $5.2 million.
“The rationale for the furlough is that it would preserve jobs otherwise lost,” Baum wrote. “This, in turn, would demonstrate that employees at MTSU are part of a larger community willing to sacrifice for members.”
The group also recommended other proposals with smaller savings for the school, like a retirement buyout plan, suspend overtime pay for clerical staff, defer faculty sabbaticals and eliminate low enrollment summer classes.
The workgroups were create late last year in response to Gov. Phil Bredesen’s call to trim as much as $20 million from the school’s budget.
In his State of the State speech Monday night, Bredesen again asked higher education officials to work with him and the state legislature to keep higher education affordable, get more kids to graduate, and create a true 21st century higher education system for Tennessee.
“The costs of Tennessee higher education continue to grow, and the ability of state government to cover them is limited,” he said. “That has meant raising tuition, and every increase means that much more difficulty for some student, that much more likelihood of abandoning the dream of a college degree. It’s time now to fix that.”
The groups, as well as a steering committee, are trying to fix it at MTSU by looking at ways to eliminate waste, consolidate resources and generate new funding sources for the future, as well as look at cutting university jobs and possibly future classes offered. Final proposals should be submitted by March.
Michelle Willard can be contacted at 615-869-0816 or mwillard@murfreesboropost.com. |
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