E-mail from CSU President Timothy Mescon

Colleagues,

At 11:52 a.m. today, I sent our response to the University System of Georgia Chancellor's request to identify $6.1 million in cuts to state-funded allocations in the Columbus State University FY 2010-11 budget.  I would like to thank Deans Hadley, Rock, Stokes, and Wortley; Drs. Levi, Cruzen, Howard, Loughman, Roberts, and Stratford; Mr. Helton and Mr. Dodd; and student Mr. Shannon Tast for working with me this morning from 7:00 a.m. until I sent the email on the final mark-ups of the response document.

As you know, we learned of this mandate at 9:30 a.m. Thursday morning and were given a response deadline of noon today.  In developing this response, we worked to strategic in our approached based on input by numerous groups and individuals including the President's cabinet, Council of Deans, Chairs' Assembly, Faculty Senate, Student Government Association, and 88 respondents to the campus-wide survey on Friday.  While we worked to be as humane as possible and protect our programs, the cuts we had to propose to reach $6.1 million are severe.  However, the proposed cuts are in line with what we know about submissions from our sister institutions who also spent the last two days developing their own budget cutting scenarios.

1) Action:  Eliminate the equivalent of 14 faculty and 10 staff (salary + benefits) Cost:  $1,600,000 Impact:  Loss of highly-qualified experienced faculty and staff.  Increased teaching loads.  Loss of class sections.  Larger class sizes. Negative impact on class availability. Negative impact on national and regional accreditations.

2) Action:  Redirect summer school tuition revenue Cost:  $400,000 Impact:  Loss of flexibility in the planning and administration of academic programs.  Reduction in support for faculty/student research and scholarly productivity.

3) Action:  Move all graduate directors and assistant chairpersons to 10-month contracts Cost:  $10,000 Impact:  Decreased availability to students.  Decreased ability to grow graduate programs.

4) Action:  10% cuts OSE and 7.5% cuts Plant Ops (not including utilities) Cost:  $937,500 Impact:  Decreased curb appeal to prospective students and their families and significantly fewer services (e.g., maintenance, grounds keeping, custodial) will create a negative impact on recruitment, retention, and campus atmosphere. Increased costs for departments. Increased near-term and long-term maintenance issues. Some costs passed on to students.

5) Action:  Cut 50% from travel Cost:  $258,000 Impact:  Loss of research productivity translates into lower quality content in the curriculum.  Undergraduate research negatively impacted.  More difficult for faculty to achieve tenure and promotion.  Loss of faculty to other institutions resulting in fewer class sections, fewer courses, longer waits for students to graduate, decreased enrollments.

6) Action:  Reduce community services including outreach and non-degree granting related programs and activities, including elimination of associated personnel. Cost:  $558,000 Impact:  Loss of community and donor support.  Loss of important outreach programs.  Loss of teaching facilities.  Loss of existing long-term contracts, grants and gifts.  Adversely impacts delivery of STEM disciplines.  Loss of educational enrichment activities for tens of thousands of K-12 students throughout the region.  Costs passed on to the public.

7) Action:  Eliminate the equivalent of 12 new/replacement faculty, administrative and staff positions (salary + benefits). Factors under consideration include: - alignment with strategic plan - program cost efficiency - degrees awarded - critical needs fields - enrollment patterns Cost:  $940,000 Impact:  Negative impact on regional and national accreditations.  Hinder development of attractive in-demand programs. Impedes and precludes any improvement in retention, progression, and graduation rates.  Negative impact on donor relationships.  Reduction in scheduling flexibility.

8) Action:  Eliminate 15% part-time faculty budget Cost:  $200,000 Impact:  Decrease number of sections.  Increase class size.  Will slow retention, progression, and graduation rates, especially in disciplines without electives that have a lot of part-time faculty teaching sections.  Increase full time faculty teaching loads with a corresponding reduction in faculty/student interaction, scholarship, and service.  Negative impact on regional and national accreditations.  Reduction in scheduling flexibility (e.g., fewer classes to accommodate students who need night/weekend classes).

9) Action:  Additional 10% cuts OSE and additional 7.5% cuts Plant Ops (not including utilities) Cost:  $937,500 Impact:  Decreased curb appeal to prospective students and their families and significantly fewer services (e.g., maintenance, grounds keeping, custodial) will create a negative impact on recruitment, retention, and campus atmosphere. Increased costs for departments. Increased near-term and long-term maintenance issues. Some costs passed on to students.

10) Action:  Eliminate Board of Regents test Cost:  $134,000 Impact:  Subject to the submission of an acceptable plan to the USG demonstrating appropriate assessment processes are in place.

11) Action:  Reduce QEP costs Cost:  $117,408 Impact:  Endanger SACS reaffirmation of accreditation.

While this document will spur debate on campus and in our community, the University System of Georgia Board of Regents and the legislature of the State of Georgia have sent a clear and resounding message:  We can no longer conduct business as usual.

We are confident that we gathered nearly 100 of the most experienced and dedicated campus leaders to solicit their input in the last 48 hours and that CSU's response accurately reflects their ideas on how we should respond as a university.  Although everyone involved rose to the task at hand with professionalism and dedication, it was an extremely painful exercise that no one took lightly.

I courage you to join with me in making contact with our state legislative team and let them know your thoughts about what is being discussed in the House and Senate about the future of higher education in this state.  I also hope you will rally students and their parents to do the same.  A listing of our state legislators can be found at the website above.

Finally, I would like to again thank Provost Levi and all the groups who responded to our call for input and who sat through an eight-hour open-door meeting yesterday.

Sincerely,

Timothy Mescon, Ph.D. President