Student Senators will go into a student fee review meeting later this month with University-wide budget cuts in mind.

Mitch Knopp, Manhattan senior and Student Senate treasurer, said last year’s senators were under some pressure by the Board of Regents to keep student fees at the same level. But he said this ignored the utility costs of the addition to the Ambler Student Recreation Fitness Center. He said the committee might look at restoring balance within the current fees.

“This year, we’ll look into maybe cutting some fees that aren’t very well used,” Knopp said. “And maybe trying to increase some of the fees that need some more.”

Mason Heilman, Lawrence senior and student body president, said he did not know whether he would support a fee increase, but also didn’t know how many fees the fee review committee would protect.

“Last year there was a strong emphasis on fees that would protect student jobs,” Heilman said. “And I would like to see those stay at a level to sustain that, but I also don’t know that’s any guarantee that that’s going to be the case. Because everything else that is non-student job related we’ve cut very painfully.”

Knopp said the Regents, if they were to make a suggestion for next fall’s fees, might make it in Spring 2010.

“Now, we’re trying to keep our ears to the ground and see how they’re feeling,” Knopp said. “It’s definitely new times that we’re still not quite used to.”

Trimming travel expenses, making sure classes were filled to capacity and leaving some faculty and staff positions unfilled were the first steps the University made during budget cuts.

But as University officials wait to hear from the Board of Regents about the next round of cuts — recently announced by Gov. Mark Parkinson as $2 million for all Regents schools — most of the deans from the University’s academic departments are deciding what can and cannot be cut.

“The cuts could potentially be very serious,” Mary Ellen Kondrat, dean of social welfare said.

And while several deans declined to share specific plans of additional cuts, a few recounted some of the cuts they’ve already made.

Faculty, staff positions left unfilled

Ann Cudd, associate dean of humanities, said the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences’ biggest reduction was in faculty. Cudd said two years ago, the college filled 45 positions, but filled only six last year. She said the 12 hires this year included six promotions from within.

She said the college was currently funding 11 job searches, along with several others being funded by outside money, such as foundations or special provost funding.

Stuart Bell, dean of engineering, said the demand for engineers allowed the School of Engineering to hire a number of good, new, young faculty in 2002 through 2006. “Great hires,” Bell said. “In terms of our young faculty who came in, very competitive. KU was well-poised at the time, in that there wasn’t a lot of hiring going on nationally, and so when you’re in that type of a market you’re able to track some really great faculty.”

Even though hiring at the School of Engineering has slowed in the past three years, Bell said the school is currently searching for at least three new faculty positions.

“In some cases, those are very large holes on a percentage basis of faculty,” Bell said. “And really, they’re not all of the positions we might have to recruit for.”

Cudd said the college was committed to continuing its searches, unless there’s more unexpected budget news. But she said it was about this time last year when it cut those searches. She said the number of searches did not match the number of openings.

“There’s so much pent up demand for faculty — I mean, people retire, people leave for whatever reason — and we haven’t been replacing them,” Cudd said.

‘We’re down to the bone’

Cudd said the college’s departments went through a planning process last spring and over the summer to prepare for additional budget cuts, but she said she could not reveal those.

“Those are pretty sensitive,” Cudd said.

Bell said the School of Engineering is currently strategizing in anticipation of the Regents’ next budget announcement.

“We will try to get a better understanding of how those are going to impact the different units, and that’s certainly not been decided by the administration yet,” Bell said.

Cudd said the cuts in the college included some phone service, 75 class sections, not replacing faculty and lowering faculty travel funds.

“I don’t think anybody in the University ever just goes out and spends money on things that are not really needed,” she said. “So I think any cuts are pretty serious. But the cuts we’d be making now would be to the bone.”

Bell said the School of Engineering continues to face the challenge of the legislators’ desire to produce more engineers in the reality of facing more budget cuts.

“The market for engineers is relatively good compared to what we feel is generally happening in the economy,” Bell said. “Our students are still getting jobs out there, getting both internship offers as well as permanent employment.”

Bell said engineering used its resources beyond capacity, given the 20 percent increase in enrollment, so cuts last year were not easy.

“When we look at reducing, make no mistake about it, it has negative impacts for almost everything we do,” Bell said.

Frank Marshall, associate dean of business, said the School of Business has had reductions in travel and professional development accounts. Marshall said the school has developed scenarios on what future cuts might hold, but have not acted on them at this point.

“The things we try to protect to the greatest degree are all the programs,” Marshall said. “The best way to characterize what we’ve tried to do is, to the greatest extent possible, keep all of the programs and the students as unaffected as possible.”

And although Gov.Parkinson said last week that legislators should bring spending back to pre-recession levels when the economy improves, Cudd said the college has to plan for any cuts to be permanent, not temporary. Cudd said one budget solution that administrators have discussed ­— furloughs — was a temporary solution.

“You can’t, for example, just say, ‘Oh, well let’s furlough everybody at the University for a week, and then we’re done with it.’ It would have to be year after year after year,” Cudd said. “That’s why we haven’t leaped to the idea of furloughs because they’re a short-term solution to a long-term problem.”

School solutions

Some new programs can serve as temporary solutions to the budget crisis.

Cudd said the college instituted a new Bachelor of General Studies in Liberal Arts and Sciences, which is a degree that draws from a diversity of courses rather than a specific major. General Studies degrees typically have fewer requirements than Bachelor of Arts degrees. She said this would also work to serve western Kansas by offering more classes online.

“We are going forward with an initiative to create more online courses,” Cudd said. “But that’s not really a response to the budget, although it may also, eventually, generate more revenue. But it’s not really tied to that. It’s something most universities are already doing.”

She said Kansas State University is currently a leader in online education for Kansans.

“We feel that’s something the College should also be a part of,” Cudd said.

Marshall said the School of Business would launch its first online business course next semester. He said the school would also start a new Bachelor’s of Business Administration degree completion program at the Edwards Campus in Overland Park. He said this was backed by money from a Johnson County tax initiative from more than a year ago.

“We didn’t create the tax dollars,” Marshall said, “but we’re prepared to roll out a program that takes advantage of those resources.”

Bell said the School of Engineering is employing professionals in the engineering industry — not on any sort of tenure or tenure track with the University — to help provide some lecture support. No sections have been cut in the School of Engineering. He said that program helped to bring a practical aspect of what students need to see. But he said the School would tread lightly, using the program in only a few classes.

“You can’t take that to the limit,” Bell said. “What it allows us to do is to go back and look at filling in for an area — because we’ve lost a faculty member — we may not be teaching this class. But because it’s a required class in our curriculum, we can’t do without it. It’s not the long-term solution.”

— Edited by Anna Kathagnarath