Lacking quorum, UC hears proposed budget

The casual observer could almost have confused yesterday's University Council meeting with a session of the Undergraduate Assembly. The unseasonably warm and sunny weather, combined with a relatively uncontroversial agenda, resulted in below-quorum attendance at the meeting. After the traditional round of reports from Council's constituent assemblies, Undergraduate Assembly member and College senior Dan Schorr asked Council Moderator Will Harris to recognize UTV President Heather Dorf, a College junior. Council's Steering Committee agreed last month to bar UTV cameras from Council proceedings, but allow them to interview members and attendees after meetings end. Schorr and Dorf planned to request that Council discuss and reconsider Steering's ruling, but Harris said that without a quorum, Council did not have the authority to take such an action. After a suggestion by Faculty Senate and Council Steering Chairperson Barbara Lowery, Harris recommended that UTV bring a full proposal about coverage to a future Steering meeting. "I do not want my ruling to close down the conversation," he said. Provost Stanley Chodorow and Ben Hoyle, the acting director of resource planning and budget, then presented highlights from the University's proposed 1995-96 academic year budget. The budget provides for an undergraduate tuition hike of 5.5 percent, with overall undergraduate charges rising by four percent. The $250 technology fee, residential living rents, and the price of a dining services meal contract have been frozen at their current levels. This year's 5.5 percent tuition increase contrasts favorably to past increases of six and even seven percent per year, Chodorow said. "We're challenging [peer institutions], in effect, to raise their rates much less than they have in the past," he added. Financial aid will jump by 4.1 percent, with approximately $47 million earmarked for undergraduates. This figure is heavily tuition-dependent -- while Princeton University's endowment supports roughly 95 percent of its financial aid budget, the University's endowment provides only $2 million for the same purpose. But the proposed budget does not show the expected effects of the reengineering mandated by the Coopers & Lybrand administrative restructuring report, Chodorow said. Hoyle said that while the new budget does not demonstrate savings achieved through reengineering, it is significant because it includes "the lowest rate of growth in the [University's] unrestricted budget" in more than 15 years. Vice Provost for Graduate Education Janice Madden and History Professor Walter Licht, the associate dean of and director of graduate studies in the School of Arts and Sciences, next reported on the state of graduate education at the University. Madden said she is encouraged by progress made since a five-year planning report on the awarding of doctoral degrees was released in 1991, including the development of clear rules and expectations for graduate groups and the recruitment and retention of students of color to the University's graduate programs. But Licht said he is "glum" about prospects graduate students face upon entering the job market, adding that worries about financial support from independent foundations and the federal government are leading to "judicious parings" within graduate groups. Assistant Vice President for Policy Planning and Federal Relations David Morse said the desire of national lawmakers for a balanced budget has endangered many fellowships and loan programs. He urged those in attendance to tell their legislators about the importance of these programs. The Graduate and Professional Student Assembly plans to begin a letter-writing campaign intended to increase awareness of such funding issues this week. Finally, Council adopted a resolution advanced by its Committee on Communications urging "expeditious completion of the ResNet project" -- by September 1996 if possible -- and guaranteed access to communication and information services for "all members of the University community."

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