SectionsFaculty skeptical of proposed budget
Bridget Rapp
Issue date: 10/13/09 Section: News
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Nietzel answered questions and addressed concerns from the staff and public. Discussion on his proposal to reevaluate staff, budgeting for sports programs versus academics, and the JQH Arena controversy also took place.
Voluntary Retirement Plan
One of the ideas to save the university money was a plan for incentivized voluntary retirement, which will be discussed more at an upcoming town hall meeting on Wednesday, Nietzel said.
Refining the large amount of money spent on faculty and staff salaries is one of the first steps, he said, thus the incentivized retirement plan.
"Basically what we are looking at is if people are retirement-eligible, what kind of incentive could we develop that would encourage retirement and save the university with respect to replacements.
"[This is] probably going to involve a certain percentage of your salary as a one-time payout, or we provide a certain number of years of health insurance," Nietzel said.
Whatever they plan to do should be decided by December, he said. To get to this point, the executive committee will meet every two weeks, and open-discussion meetings will hold.
Sports Before Academics?
Despite concerns expressed about the academic programs being cut over athletics ones, Nietzel said more sports programs will not be cut.
Dan Kaufman, philosophy professor, said he is wondering why the university is spending money on athletics versus putting funds toward academic programs.
Nietzel said sports are a part of the university's identity, and most of the money for athletics comes from scholarships.
Kaufman said those scholarships could go toward academics instead.
"Despite the fact that $3 million of the funding for sports is from scholarships, that's $3 million that could go to non-athletic students," he said.
"Why should we have any athletics at all so long as we are cutting one penny of regular academic scholarships or not replacing [a professor]?" he said. "What is the reasoning for spending money on what is essentially entertainment when we can't afford to fund the primary function of the university?"
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Jeremiah
posted 10/16/09 @ 6:05 PM CST
RIDICULOUS!!
A University should only be focused on education. Wasting money to pay for losing sports teams, is a travesty. A university is not judged on what division sports team it has, but on the quality of its education and on what the students who graduate go on to do. (Continued…)
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