No Response to Faculty Petition

Bill Mode reminds us that the petition that started this blog has yet to be answered by the administration, and they are promising to cut even more from the instructional budget:

Dear COLS Faculty Colleagues,


Recently at the COLS Faculty Committee meeting I asked the committee members if anyone had received a response from the Chancellor to the petition submitted by University faculty and staff this spring asking the Administration to reconsider the way budget cuts were made across the University (http://www.uwosh.edu/faculty_staff/yackel/petition/petition.pdf). No one has received a formal response to the petition. The petition indicated that instructional budgets had been cut disproportionately compared to non-instructional areas. The email that we all received from the Chancelor July 7 suggests that the Administration maintains its position that the budget cuts thus far have protected instruction rather than cutting it disproportionately:
"As you know we will have over the 2003-05 and 2005-07 biennia cut $9.3 million out of areas other than direct instruction. If the Governor does not veto the additional $2.7 million cuts, then we will not be able to continue to protect direct instruction."
Clearly the Administration believes it has protected instructional budgets, an assertion that was questioned by the petition and by many at the information meeting.
The following sentence in the Chancellor's attachment to the July 7 email, entitled "Impact of Potential Additional Budget Reductions University of Wisconsin Oshkosh," reveals the Administration's intention to cut instruction much more deeply than other areas: "80% or $1.5 million of the reduction will impact instruction directly." Such a disproportionately deep cut to instruction seems imprudent, potentially disastrous. It is discouraging to realize that the Administration places such a low value on our instructional mission. Let us hope that such cuts will not materialize.


Bill Mode



William N. Mode
Professor and Chair
Department of Geology