SAS officials aim to reduce budget deficit

Interim SAS Dean Walter Wales hopes to eliminate the deficit in five years. The deficit-ridden School of Arts and Sciences has been likened to the administration's "budget whipping boy" -- providing an excuse for officials to cut its faculty, delay faculty recruitment and reduce funding for the school's programs. But administrators contend that the school's financial problems are relatively insignificant, describing them as nothing more than "a small show in the big picture." And Interim SAS Dean Walter Wales said the school's current deficit should be eliminated "within the next five years." Last spring, administrators estimated that SAS would end fiscal year 1997 with a $2.1 million deficit. Recently, however, deficit projections were reduced to about $1 million after the school instituted more cost-efficient practices and found additional sources of income, Deputy Provost Michael Wachter said. Wachter said the SAS deficit represents less than half of one percent of the total SAS endowment of $220 million.EThe Wharton School, meanwhile, has managed to entirely avoid a budget deficit due to its $2.5 billion endowment and strong graduate program. "We have tried to run our school as efficiently as we can," Wales said, adding that SAS has eliminated a number of temporary faculty positions and has begun to locate external sources of fundraising to reduce the deficit. Wachter added that administrators will soon launch a "development initiative" aimed at increasing funds for undergraduate financial aid as early as next year. The school's recently adopted masters programs in Biotechnology, Environmental Studies and Bioethics may also provide sources of revenue for the school, possibly resolving the entire deficit in several years, Wales said. But College Dean Robert Rescorla said the current budget directly affects the number of SAS faculty hired in any given year. Although Wales said an "unusually large number of retirements" accounted for the loss of 25 faculty members last year, the majority of those posts have remained unfilled. Last month, Wales denied the Folklore Department's request for a replacement for Department Chairperson Margaret Mills. And the Political Science Department is still in the process of soliciting SAS funds to hire faculty specializing in political theory and minority politics. Wales admitted that vacant faculty positions may affect students in smaller departments. But he questioned the impact on those in larger departments. "I am not aware that students are sensitive to the number of faculty in a department," he said, adding that students are "mostly concerned about what they're learning." Students, however, did voice concern about such cutbacks when former SAS Dean Rosemary Stevens eliminated the American Civilization and Regional Studies departments in 1994. Stevens, whose five-year term was riddled with budgetary problems, created a $1.2 million surplus in 1995 by leaving several faculty positions unfilled. Stevens' early departure made her the sixth dean to leave SAS in the past 22 years. Wachter attributed the recent financial difficulties in SAS to several external pressures, including a slower rate of undergraduate tuition increases, the loss of an unrestricted $15 million state grant used to subsidize SAS financial aid and a national decline in enrollments in doctoral programs. He stressed that the school is not "deteriorating." "There's a lot more noise about the budget than there is a problem," he said. Although several faculty members questioned whether the administration focuses enough attention on the school, University President Judith Rodin emphasized that SAS is "an extraordinarily high priority." "In some ways, that's why the [SAS dean search] is taking so long," she said. Wales has served as interim dean since Stevens stepped down from her post in 1996. Administrators have yet to find a permanent replacement. Under the University's decentralized budgeting system, individual schools control their own students' tuition dollars, and do not receive funds from the central administration. In February, Rodin said the University could not abandon the decentralized system for fear of plunging SAS into further debt, since the school receives large tuition transfers from Wharton, the School of Engineering and Applied Science and the School of Nursing. Although SAS is one of the main beneficiaries of administrative subsidies, Wales said he has not asked for help in alleviating the deficit. "It's not as if the University is awash with money they don't know what to do with," he added. But Rescorla said it is the administration's responsibility to level the playing field for SAS by "smoothing out the budgets of all the schools."