Nicholls: CT budget problematic
http://www.dailycampus.com/news/nicholls-ct-budget-problematic-1.1110056
By Amy Schellenbaum
Staff Writer
Published: Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Potential changes in study abroad protocol and general education guidelines and grim updates on the future financial situation of the university were discussed Monday at the first University Senate meeting of the spring semester.
Provost Peter Nicholls, presenting the President’s report on President Hogan’s behalf, emphasized the potential budget problems stemming from a $3 billion gap in the state budget.
“The state is sweeping $8 million of our reserves for this year and the next,” said Nicholls.
The state can take and has taken UConn reserve money, funds collected from the university or from the federal government that are not apportioned for an explicit purpose in writing, in order to promote the welfare of the state as a whole, according to Nicholls.
The reserve money can be promised to leaders of specific projects, but if they are not officially allocated, the state can potentially grab an ambiguous amount of money from the reserves, which much of the time have no ancestral ties to the state, according to Nicholls.
“Please understand that if the state decided to sweep more reserves, this would impose significant and very real damage to the academic program … and to the maintenance of our normal operations,” said Nicholls.
Nicholls said that UConn’s Chief Financial Officer Richard Gray reported that the university could have a deficit of $20 million for fiscal year 2012. Nicholls said that various options for helping UConn’s financial troubles are being discussed. Nicholls said that building up the summer school program, a program that is currently bringing in $1 million, is one way to bring in funds. A major tuition increase was not cited as a rational solution.
“Realistically there are severe limits on what we can do with tuition,” said Nicholls, referencing the criticism from politicians and residents regarding the 6 percent increase in tuition proposed by the Connecticut State University system.
Nicholls also spoke about protocols for undergraduates that designed to promote greater safety abroad. The guidelines are that a student that is studying abroad for credit must go through the Study Abroad Office, a guideline that exists now, but, according to Nicholls, is not being “uniformly enforced.”
If the experience abroad is not for academic credit, Nicholls said that UConn might require the students to get travel insurance. Also, faculty who are accompanying undergraduates abroad must go through a training module.
At the meeting, the Curricula & Courses Committee proposed a change in the general education guidelines. Currently, courses from content area four are the only classes that are able to be “double-dipped” with classes of another content area. The proposal stated that the rule be changed so that classes from any of the content areas, not just content area four, can be bridged into additional content areas for general education credit.
As an example, a hypothetical class about the ethics of biological experimentation could potentially give a student credit in the content area for philosophy as well as the content area for science and technology.
“There may not be too many classes that can do this, but we would like to open the door for them,” said Katharina von Hammerstein who presented the proposal.
Students would still have to complete at least seven classes in the content areas to fulfill the general education requirement.
The goal of this proposal, as said by von Hammerstein, was to provide general education that could “cross disciplinary boundaries.”
The issue will be voted upon at the next meeting.
The Curricula & Courses Committee also spoke about revisions in the description of two business 1000 level classes and add classes entitled “Business: A Hands-On Introduction” and “Water Resources Assessment Development and Management.” The course changes were approved.
The Senate Scholastic Standards spoke in its annual report about its plan to propose changes in the academic calendar, revisions to final exam expectations of professors and the development of standards for online courses.
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