Cuts spur UT Senate to create councils

In an effort to increase student involvement in the University’s budget cutting process, the Senate of College Councils, in cooperation with Student Government and the Graduate Student Assembly, is working with Provost Steven Leslie and the deans of each of UT’s 18 colleges and schools to create a program called the College Tuition and Budget Advisory Councils.

Faculty, staff and students must expect to see serious cuts to academic programs in the next year — a process that President William Powers Jr. said may diminish the University’s capacity to become the exemplary school it has always been. The advisory councils will bridge the divide between students and administrators as each college responds to the state-mandated, University-wide 5-percent budget cut announced in fall 2009 for the 2011-2012 budget cycle, and the 10-percent cut announced this summer for the 2012-2013 cycle.

Under the current proposal, the committees will include three students appointed by the president of each college’s council; two graduate students appointed by GSA President Manny Gonzalez, and the SG representative from that college. The committees will also include faculty, but Senate President Chelsea Adler said the three student governance organizations are still considering the most effective way to involve faculty.

“We have seen this past spring semester a small taste of what could become the norm, with a lack of communication and a lack of transparency about how budget cuts are going to tangibly affect students on campus,” Adler said. “Students need to be better informed so they can make better decisions, and they need to communicate with each other.”

The idea for advisory councils first arose from examining a 2004 proposal by the Tuition Policy Advisory Committee, but students worked this summer to revamp that proposal in response to the unexpected cutting of the Vietnamese language program in the spring. Students did not find out that the program was at risk until it had already been stricken from the budget, and the College of Liberal Arts and Department of Asian Studies had no means to respond to the calls of students to restore the program.

Within a few weeks of the cut of the Vietnamese program, Senate, SG and GSA all passed resolutions promising to work for increased student involvement in the budget cutting process. The formation of the advisory councils is the first major step to follow through on that promise, Adler said.

Most college deans and Leslie are on board with the proposal, and College of Liberal Arts Dean Randy Diehl expressed particular enthusiasm, Adler said.

“It sounds like a good idea that people are collaborating to bridge the gap between students and the deans,” said Nickie Tran, former president of the Vietnamese Students Association, who campaigned on behalf of the Vietnamese language program in the spring. “Maybe this will help everybody on campus be more aware of budget cuts for whatever else is being cut.”

As Senate, SG and GSA finalize the plans for the advisory councils program and work to put the councils in place in each college, Adler said it is a small step towards resolving an inescapable budget deficit.

“It does not mean that if we get CTBACs in place that we’ll suddenly have more money,” she said. “The real problem is that there isn’t enough money in higher education.”