Friday, January 30, 2009   Efficiency and Mission  A few days
ago we got word of the latest round of state funding cuts. I've
literally lost track of the number of cuts we've taken this
year, but the cumulative impact is drastic. Worse, we got the
first inkling of the likely cut for next fiscal year, which
starts July 1, and it will make this year's cuts look minor.
Given a reluctance to pass the brunt of the cuts on to the
students in the form of tuition/fee increases, we've cut
spending dramatically, and are readying to cut even more. What
makes this interesting is that we've hit the inflection point at
which a difference of degree becomes a difference of kind.
Every part of the college has taken hits: athletics, academics,
student life, marketing, everybody. On the academic side, until
now we've mostly been able to get by with the usual playbook:
cut travel, replace departing full-time faculty with adjuncts,
and subject any purchase requests to Inquisition-level
questioning. We've put out the call for vo