I wish that I could end the year on an up beat and positive note.
There are things we have achieved this year. The role of the senate in shared campus governance is better established and we have certainly made our mark at the system level - although that remains a challenge. The general education committee has also stood in ground in a challenging year and some progress has been made on articulation issues - but again challenges remain.
In the wake of the last BOR meeting at which VP McClain announced (with no prior consultation) that implementation of the Manoa upper division requirement for E and O focus courses would be postponed until Spring 2005, This had the effect of causing major confusion since no one knew what exactly that would mean; advisers didn't know what to tell students who were about to begin registration. Tom Schroeder and I went to talk to VP McClain to point out the problematic aspects of the consequences of his pronouncement and request that he issue a clarifying memo, one which include recognition of Manoa's authority over its graduation requirements. Karl Kim wrote a memo protesting the interference in Manoa's academic affairs. GEC has also drafted letters of protest to Chancellor Englert, which SEC handed to him yesterday.
The was a meeting of the a reformulated (and expanded) university council on articulation last week. This was called on very short notice. It is clear that it is possible to continue to make progress on this front, and it must be emphasized that in fact we have made progress. What is clear is that the system level isn't doing its part - being the coordinator - making sure that accurate information is compiled and distributed, instead it has been trying to get into to the academic policy area which really belongs with campuses and their faculty.
Last week there was also a meeting of the President's Advisory Council on Policy and Planning - this discussed the biennium budget process in the light of the system strategic plan. It is still not wholly clear where this is headed. The "stock" taking exercise and the Council and Chancellors has been completed (presentations can be viewed at www.hawaii.edu/vpaa/). What isn't clear is what will be done with that. Manoa deans and directors have been asked to come up with wish list as usual, just to make sure we have one. David McClain mentioned a possible list of criteria that might be used as a basis for making system level budget (re)allocations. Chancellor Englert, on advice from Manoa Budget advisory committee and others is leading a group to work on mission clarification for the campuses, with the thought that prior to knowing what campuses are supposed to be doing you have no basis for assessing performance. Again it is not clear that, or how, this will be allowed to feed in to the biennium budget preparation process. Vigilance will be required over the summer, since the process will be pretty much complete by the beginning of fall semester. The Manoa Budget advisory committee has met and is struggling with its task. Two subgroups have been formed - one to work out what exactly we mean by transparent budgeting - what information do we want to be available. The other will look again at performance indicators. The committee has to come up with a draft report within a couple of weeks.
Still on budget - which is a very gloomy topic - you will doubtless of heard of that A&H and LLL do not have enough money to continue operations as usual next year. Basically they have run out of accumulated carry-over funds. As I reported at the last meeting Rodney Sakaguchi's warning was that the campus as a whole is spending down its carry-over reserves and is not operating in a sustainable fashion. There will be other units reaching the same point before long if we don't start to make some changes.
A&H has a projected deficit of $252,280 for the next academic year; LLL $300,000
In the short term it was agreed at MLT yesterday that each college would get a $50k budget augmentation to allow restoration of some cancelled fall classes. That over the summer there would be college based planning processes set up to look for more revenues and a structural realignment of resources.
Library, serials budget. Shortfall for this year is $140k. System will be asked for $30k to cover shared system costs and use a combination of RTRF and other reserve funds to make up the difference for this year.
There was a proposal to raise student fees to help out next year, but the Chancellor has asked for a general review of all student fees before implementing any new fees. Ron Cambra is tasked with doing this.
All this says that next year is not going to be easy for anyone. It becomes even more important that faculty endeavor to think as a campus, not as individual units, because it is only as parts of a sustainably operating campus that we have a chance of being able to continue to perform our academic functions in the way that we would want to. The price of that is likely to be that we have to accept some organizational changes.
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