FROM THE HILL
$60 Million in Budget Cuts Being Felt Across Campus
The $60 million in budget reductions enacted at he University in July proved prophetic. By the time North Carolina’s new budget was finished,
it was that amount — 10 percent of what UNC gets
from the state — that the University was ordered to cut.
Some 300 jobs are going away, most of them in auxiliary services; most are unfilled positions. Tenure and
tenure-track faculty positions are protected, but because
faculty recruitment and hiring was slowed over the past
year, many instructors are taking additional loads to try
to minimize the impact on class size and availability.
Many of UNC’s smaller classes are getting bigger.
The biggest impact of the budget ax, the result of
declining state revenues in a
continued sluggish economy,
may be on the University’s cen-
ters and institutes. These areas
— such at the Carolina Popula-
tion Center, the Highway Safety
Research Center and the
Renaissance Computing Insti-
tute — bring together faculty
members and full-time scientists
to work on societal problems.
They fulfill many of UNC’s
goals for service and economic
development generation to the
state. The research centers cuts
total $5.7 million.
Much of the centers’ funding comes from outside
grants — $6.50 for every $1 invested by the state —
but 5 and 10 percent cuts (and 35 percent for RENCI)
are considered significant losses.
The University tried to minimize the impact on
instruction by cutting significantly from support areas
and administration. The amount cut from state appropriations to instructional units and academic support is
$23.6 million.
All the cuts are recurring rather than single-year
reductions. People who have been at UNC a long time
are saying that “this is one of the biggest cuts they’ve
ever seen,” said Dick Mann, vice chancellor for finance
and administration.
“I don’t think there [is] going to be a reduction in
classes,” he added, but there will be fewer sections and
higher teaching loads. Small classes, which had been
capped at 19 seats, now will be capped at 24.
“The University overall caught a pretty good break,”
said interim Provost Bruce Carney.“The cut is going to
affect instruction but less visibly than it might have.”
Balanced against the bad news of budget cuts is
UNC’s $271.25 million in gifts in fiscal year 2009, the
second-highest year in history for this type of support.
The University also set a new record for external
research funding in 2009, more than $716 million.
Mann said what most worries South Building is
that the state could come back and ask for deeper cuts
if the revenue picture doesn’t improve. The next 5 percent UNC might have to cut on top of these cuts is
“really going to start hitting us severely,” he said. Some
academic programs could be shut down, and all additional positions lost would be filled positions.
Among other impacts of the budget cuts:
; Capital projects are at a virtual standstill. UNC got
the money to complete an expansion of the dental school
and to finish the new Biomedical Research Imaging
Center. But it got only $4 million for repairs and renovations, far less than needed, and many older buildings will
have to wait. Howell and Bingham halls are in especially
bad shape, Carney said; staff moved out of Bingham last
spring before mold problems were corrected.
; The slowdown in faculty recruiting — it never
was stopped altogether — will hurt UNC academically
in the long run. “We lost the good people we couldn’t
hire,” Carney said. The good news is that faculty retention among those recruited by other schools was
unusually high in the College of Arts and Sciences.
Also, relatively few professors retired last year.
; Office cleaning has been reduced from five to two
days per week, and the campus will notice cutbacks in
grounds and building maintenance, waste reduction and
recycling, energy management and mail services.
The UNC System will keep a provision enacted in
2005 that allows the campuses to consider out-of-state
students who receive full scholarships to be regarded as
in-state residents for tuition purposes. This significantly
lowers the cost of funding those scholarships for the
athletics boosters club, the Morehead-Cain Foundation
and the Robertson Scholars Program, in addition to
other academic full scholarships.
Money to accommodate enrollment growth was
not affected.
Part of the revenue loss will be mitigated by tuition
increases. At Carolina, tuition starting this fall went up
$240 a year for in-state undergraduates — the maximum allowable under a 6. 5 percent cap imposed by
the UNC System Board of Governors — as approved
by the trustees late last year. Out-of-state students are
paying $1,150 more a year. Most graduate students are
paying $400 more, although the increases in some professional schools are higher. Fees for all students rose
$75, about 4 percent.
Budget continued on page 5
The Class
of ’ 13
Based on slightly
incomplete information as of mid-August, the undergraduate admissions
office reports:
;
23,048 applied
and 7,344, or 32
percent, were admitted. The enrollment
expectation was
54 percent of those.
; Average SAT score
is 1302.
;
69. 7 percent of
all admitted North
Carolinians chose
to enroll.
;
11 percent of the
freshman class is
considered “
low-income,” up from
4 percent six years
ago.
; Admitted freshmen come from
97 N.C. counties,
43 states and the
District of Columbia
and 23 other countries.
; Of those who
reported their graduating class ranks,
43. 8 percent were
10th or higher,
13. 5 percent were
first or second, and
79. 6 percent were in
the top 10 percent.
;
11. 5 percent are
African-American,
8. 9 percent Asian-American, 5. 9 percent Hispanic.
;
57. 5 percent have
traveled outside the
United States, and
19.3 percent are
fluent in a language
other than English.
;
59. 5 percent of
the new class is
female, 40. 5 percent
male.
