Hello and thank you for your continued interest in Western’s budgeting process.
This document was finalized on January 6, 2009. While the forum is temporarily closed for discussion, a link to the final document remains posted for your convenience. Additionally, the forum remains open so that interested readers have an opportunity to continue to review comments that were made during the document development process.
As we implement new 2009-11 budget policies and processes, we will ask participants and members of the Western community to share ideas for improvements. Once the process is fully underway, we will reopen this forum for comments on implementation and lessons learned for the future.
Thanks again,
Paula M. Gilman
Executive Director
University Planning and Budgeting
| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
| Process for Considering Program Reductions or Elimination - Jan 6, 2009 FINAL.pdf | 18.51 KB |
Somebody has to think back on the damage that was done to morale and program quality when a brainless reduction-in-force method was applied back in the '70s. Faculty positions were cut according to a "formula" that was supposed to bring every department within a narrowly defined range of cost. There are still some of us who remember President Olscamp and the Program Study Committee. RRIF was applied without any consideration of program quality or the importance of a program to the central mission of the university. The result was that certain departments were so badly weakened that it took decades for them to recover. Because of the way that the formula was applied, departments with large (relatively inexpensive) lecture classes were impacted much less, while departments with expensive operations, including laboratories, were decimated.
My plea is for the administration to reject proposals to cut faculty according to formula or to "distribute the pain" equally among departments. Our leaders have take charge and make the tough decisions about eliminating programs that are peripheral to the central mission of the university, without weakening the core programs that have brought our university to the level of prestige and acclaim that it currently enjoys.
George S. Kriz, Chemistry