Proposed UA budget cuts prompt Faculty Senate call for action

Tanith L. Balaban Arizona Daily Wildcat University of Arizona Provost Paul Sypherd voices concerns about the estimated $15 million funding cut for the university at the Faculty Senate meeting yesterday at the Law College.

Several faculty senators criticized the Joint Legislative Budget Committee's plan to cut more than $15 million out of the state university budget, echoing sentiments of University of Arizona administrators who have publicly condemned the proposal.

The UA would need to trim $6.5 million and jeopardize 90 faculty positions if the JLBC's proposal passes.

Faculty chairman Jerrold Hogle told the Senate that he is taking personal action to voice his concerns to the Legislature.

"I have decided that I am going to write letters to my three representatives," he said. "We don't want to urge any cutting from the university budget at all."

Hogle then urged other Senate members to personally communicate with their legislators, giving each senator a packet that included phone numbers and e-mail addresses of the lawmakers.

"Let's start the discussion in a new direction," Hogle said.

Included in Hogle's packet was a message from UA President Peter Likins and Arizona Regent Judy Gignac.

"Everyone needs to speak up," Gignac and Likins wrote. "If they hear from enough of you, the sawdust will be left in the woodshed - where it belongs."

Likins has previously called the JLBC's budget proposal "destructive" and the cuts "onerous."

Sypherd tried to calm Senate members, some who have recently voiced their fury about certain legislators and their plan.

"I'm not suggesting that anyone start opening veins yet," Sypherd said. "We're still early in the process."

But Sypherd did question the JLBC's idea that would ask faculty members to increase their productivity.

State Sen. Randall Gnant (R-Scottsdale) has suggested that UA instructors spend an extra 18 minutes per week in the classroom, saving the state an expected $6.6 million. Sypherd described the proposal as a "clinker" while Likins and Gignac called it "nonsense."

"That's all so you can work harder and teach a little longer," Sypherd said. "We're really at the ragged edge."

The provost reinforced Hogle's plan for faculty members to contact legislators and voice their personal opinions about the budget proposal.

"We need to make our voices heard as citizens," Sypherd said. "We're an important investment in the future and we have to get that idea across. Apparently we haven't done that so well so far."

Sen. Miklos Szilagyi, an electrical and computer engineering professor, said he worries about hostility between the Legislature and the UA.

"We always criticize the Legislature and that doesn't help us, as we see," Szilagyi said.

The UA Faculty Governance home page can tell you just about everything you ever wanted to know about the Faculty Senate. There's also a link to a complete archive of Faculty Senate meeting minutes.