University will avoid long-term damage if cuts do not exceed 4 percent

The university will survive a $13.9 million state-mandated budget cut, but a larger cut could cause long-term damage, UA President Peter Likins said moments before his annual State of the University address Friday.

Likins said he is confident the University of Arizona's budget will not be required to cut more than 4 percent from its budget to accommodate a two-year, $1.6 billion state deficit, but he said that despite support from Republican Gov. Jane Dee Hull and the state Senate, the battle against the cuts is not over.

He said the university can handle a cut this year and next and still retain the strength it needs to stay on course. But because the university has no backup plan to deal with a cut larger than 4 percent, Likins said an even larger cut could cause permanent damage.

"I truly believe if we take a cut that exceeds 4 percent... that it will so shatter the confidence of our faculty and key staff that they will give up on the university and go away," he said.

Likins and other UA officials are waiting for a Nov. 13 special Legislative session that is expected to shed light on the size of the university cuts.

Several state representatives including Republicans Pete Hershberger, Marian McClure and Carol Somers and Democrat Gabrielle Giffords attended the address, as well as a representative from the governor's office.

"We've got to take care of our friends because we expect them to take care of us," Likins said.

He told the audience of 500 people in the Marriott University Park ballroom that the university is living in a different world in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, and it is being tested along with all of society.

"The old idea that the university exists in an ivory tower - isolated and insulated from the winds of change - is a fantasy," he said. "Perhaps it was never true. It is certainly not true now."

Likins said that in order to meet the challenges the UA faces, the university's problems must be placed in the context of the world.

"We are deeply imbedded in the culture in which we find ourselves," he said.

Weaving these issues into the UA's current budget crisis, Likins cheered the Arizona Students' Association's lobbying slogan "no more than four."

Jenny Rimsza, ASA co-director, has spent the past week advertising the group's slogan and organizing a rally of more than 100 students outside the State Capitol for Nov.13.

"It was great to hear that President Likins is on board with us," she said. "The university is doing everything it can. I think we're going to be okay."

Hull is expected to announce her budget cut recommendations sometime this week.

The cuts have already pulled money for advising, limited the amount of technology in the new Integrated Learning Center and frozen hiring until further notice.