Budget minimally affects students
Two weeks after President Jehuda Reinharz projected a $10 million gap in the Brandeis operating budget for the fiscal year 2009, administrators are still focusing on the University's goal to "avoid affecting students in terms of the core teaching and academic experience," according to Dean of Arts and Sciences Adam Jaffe.In a campuswide e-mail sent on Oct. 3, Reinharz wrote, "I have approved a plan to close the gap this fiscal year. The plan calls for the use of one-time resources of $5 million, and another $5 million to be provided through expenditure reductions." Reinharz also wrote, "I have asked that the majority of the reduction target be accomplished through expenditure reductions in such areas as equipment, consultants, memberships, travel, events and supplies." The areas of these expenditure cuts will not affect students directly.
According to Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Peter French, the only department that will be exempt from any expenditure cuts will be Public Safety.
Jaffe said, "We produced the operating budgets that individual departments have. These [include] things like seminars, colloquia, office equipment and, to some extent, pizza at student events or academic events like Meet the Majors. [The individual departments] will have less money to spend on those things. They will decide how they would like to cut back, but they have to cut somewhere."
Jaffe said, "We also suspended most of the searches that we had begun for new faculty for next year. We had had 16 searches underway, and we're still trying to figure out how we're going to handle all of those, but something like 10 or 12 of those [searches] will be suspended for a year."
According to an Oct. 7 e-mail Jaffe sent to Brandeis faculty members, "Departmental and other operating expense budgets will be cut by an average of 20 percent."
Jaffe also explained that the University has terminated the Arts and Sciences Faculty Travel Policy, which enables faculty members to make school-related travel arrangements with Brandeis' travel agency, Carlson Wagonlit Travel. Any faculty members who were "previously approved will get their money, but people who have not yet been approved will not," he said.
"We do also have a gift fund called the Norman Fund, which is devoted to faculty research. Twice a year, faculty can apply for funding related to their research, which can sometimes include travel. Since this is a gift fund rather than University money, it will not be affected by the budget cuts," he said.
In addition to individual department cuts and the termination of the Faculty Travel Policy, Jaffe was forced to "pull back" on hiring some adjuncts to teach particular courses in the spring. As a result, a few elective courses will not be offered next semester. However, Jaffe explained that any course that is required or an important part of a particular academic program will still be offered. Jaffe said that no one particular department will be affected, but rather that these elective courses would have been "all over the board."
The effects of the budget cuts are also affecting University areas outside the individual departments. In an article published on ITworld.com on Oct. 8, Director of Network Systems John Turner said that the current economic crisis has affected Brandeis' IT budget. Turner said in the article, "Our operating expenditure budgets have been frozen and cut, and we currently have a hiring freeze in effect. There is an obvious direct financial impact to our institution when there is this amount of uncertainty in the market." However, in an interview with the Justice, Turner denied that the IT budget has been affected.
Chief Technology Officer Anna Tomecka wrote in an e-mail to the Justice, "The specifics of the [IT budget] cuts have not been finalized yet. At this point, I do not know if and how they will impact the IT budget." Tomecka declined to comment before any decisions were finalized.
Should the economic crisis subside over the next few months, the plan to accommodate the projected budget gap will not be altered significantly, according to Jaffe. He explained, "The cuts we have made are projected to be insufficient to avoid deficit anyway. So, if things improve, it will just mean that we will have a smaller deficit."
"I think students will be affected in minor ways," Jaffe added, "which will include not having pizza at student events, not being able to take one elective that may have otherwise been offered or having slightly more crowded lecture sections because instead of teaching five, we'll teach four, and each one will be slightly more crowded. . But we're trying to avoid any significant loss in terms of the academic experience," he said.
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