Outlook / the University of Maryland, College Park (1991)

Special Issue

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OUTLOOK

A WEEKLY NEWSPAPER FOR FACULTY AND STAFF AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND AT COLLEGE PARK

DECEMBER 12, 1991
VOLUME 6. NUMBER 15

An Interim Report from Provost J. Robert Dorfman

The Impact of Budget Cuts on Our
Priority Objectives

By J. Robert Dorfman

In a letter to the campus pub-
lished last month in the Diamond-
back, President Kirwan called on
each of us to "hold fast to our
vision of what College Park can yet
be." I share the President's view
that the vision of national eminence
we had only recently dared to
dream for our university can still
be realized— if wc can come
through our present period of
troubles with our values and essen-
tial units still intact.

As we all know, however, in the
face of massive cutbacks in state
appropriations (totalling $40 mil-
lion or roughly 18 percent of our
total appropriation from the state),
wc have had to focus our attention
more on damage control than on
implementing visions. As the presi-
dent indicated in his letter, he has
asked that I report to the campus
on the effectiveness of various ef-
forts to shelter our highest priority
objectives from serious damage.
This is my report. It is an "interim"
one for some obvious reasons: (a) It
is not at all clear that we have
heard the final word about our
financial situation for FY 92, not to
mention FY 93, and (b) The aca-
demic reorganization process dis-
cussed below is not yet complete,
and until it is, the financial conse-
quences cannot be discussed with
any finality.

Nevertheless, I will describe
here the steps that wc have taken
to protect the basic academic prior-
ities of the campus, despite the
sizeable cuts to our budget. It is

important to remember that every
unit on the campus has had its
budget sharply reduced, in some
cases to what can only be called a
bare subsistence budget. Let us
then be crystal clear about the
limits to which any "protecting" or
"sheltering" of our priorities might
have succeeded: we have identified
our priorities, we have made hard
fiscal choices in light of them, but
what this has meant is that some
programs, units, or activities have
been harmed relatively less seriously
than others. Once this larger point is
understood, we can profitably dis-
cuss the many heroic efforts people
have made to keep our units going,
but we should not lose sight of the
overall dimensions of the unfortu-
nate situation in which the campus
now finds itself.

Our Initial Guidelines

When the crisis began a year
and a half ago, the president and
vice presidents did what they often
do — we asked a lot of people for
help. My office saw a steady
stream of deans, department chairs,
representatives from the Campus
Senate, and more than a few indi-
vidual faculty members. These pre-
liminary conversations generated a
set of guidelines to follow as we
began to respond to the crisis:

■ We should attempt to make
reversion and reallocation deci-
sions, at both the college and cam-
pus levels, in a manner consistent
with the concept of shared faculty

governance, working wherever
possible with established commit-
tees and within existing review
procedures;

■ We should try to minimize the
extent of overall damage to the
quality of our programs by making
selective rather than across-the-
board cuts. To that end we would
need to set in motion a process for
identifying both our lower and
higher priority academic units to
shelter — insofar as this might be
possible — the latter from irrepar-
able harm;

continued on page 2

APAC Identifies Program Changes
as Strategic Planning Proceeds

Since July 1, 1988 when College
Park was officially designated the
flagship institution of the state of
Maryland, the university has been
on a bewildering financial roller
coaster. As the key academic plan-
ning body for the campus, College
Park's Academic Planning Advis-
ory Committee (APAC), a predom-
inantly faculty group that advises
the provost, has been a vital part of
the university's response to the
rapidly changing fiscal climate.

At first glance, the university's
fiscal prospects appeared rosy, and
the university moved ahead swiftly
to produce the July 1989 Enhance-
ment Plan that relied on a major
infusion of state funds to help the
university in its quest to join the
ranks of the top public universities
in the nation.

But scarcely a year later, by
August 1989, an unexpected precip-
itous decline in the state's economy
had begun to cause the state's fiscal
environment to sour, and the uni-
versity's dream of enhancement
began to dim.

That fall of 1989, the Enhance-
ment Plan was put on hold, and
the university began to struggle to
find ways to accommodate to what
so far has amounted to a disastrous
$40 million, 20% reduction in its
state supported operating budget, a
cut that occurred in five hits over
the last 14 months.

Strategic Planning Begins

As part of this process, College
Park undertook a strategic plan-
ning process designed to maintain

the quality of the institution
through the careful reallocation of
resources. With consensus among
campus faculty and administrative

leaders that major cuts should not
be made "across the board," it was
decided that selective cuts in pro-
grams must be made to enable
resources to be placed into sup-
porting the university's highest pri-
ority programs, programs central to
the university's goals.

The first step in this strategic
planning process began in fall 1990
as Provost Dorfman asked each
dean to develop with "broad and
representative faculty input" a plan
to accommodate permanent budget
reductions within his or her college
or school. Armed with a set of

continued on page 7

UNIVERSITY

O F

MARYLAND

A T

COLLEGE

PARK

An Interim Report from Provost J. Robert Dorfman

Continued from page I

• Wherever possible, reversion
and reallocation decisions ought to
reflect priorities identified though
previous planning efforts;

■ In hopes of avoiding signifi-
cant disruption in our students'
academic plans and graduation
schedules, we would try to mini-
mize the impact of these cuts on
the availability of undergraduate
courses; and finally,

• We would remain committed
to the institution of faculty tenure.

It was not obvious at the outset,
nor is it completely certain today,
that the campus could succeed in
following every one of these guide-
lines, although we certainly have
adhered to the first and last. Now,
more than a year into this difficult
business, these uncertainties
remain. What I can report is essen-
tially where we stand at the
present moment.

The Decision Process

Let me say something about the
matter of process, because it is of
such great importance for the fabric
of our community. So far, the cam-
pus has managed to respond to its
fiscal problems in largely a collective
manner; it has fashioned its
response to the crisis within a set-
ting of open debate and shared
decision -ma king. This has been
true of the work of the Academic
Planning Advisory Committee
(APAC), first through the efforts of
the college-level committees which
identified areas in their units for
possible reduction, and later for the
many committees — involving over
100 faculty members — called into
being to design a process for im-
plementing APAC's recommenda-
tions. At present, a number of open
hearings are being held to provide
an opportunity for all points of
view to be heard. As the delibera-
tions move to the Senate Programs,
Curricula and Courses (PCC)
Committee and the floor of the
Campus Senate, there will be addi-
tional opportunities for debate and
collective decision-making.

Previously Identified Priorities

Although the 1989 Enhancement
Plan did not mark the hoped-for
onset of the golden age for the Col-
lege Park campus, it did achieve a
broad consensus on the campus'
highest priority objectives, one
which turned out to be of value to
the campus in a vastly different set
of circumstances than we originally
had in mind.

The Enhancement Plan has an at-
tached price tag of over $1 00 mil-
lion in additional state funding
over a five-year period. None of
the goals of this plan has yet been
fully realized, nor can they be, un-
til the required funds are made
available. As Figure 1 makes all too
clear, the ini rial promise of enhan-
cement has not been matched by
fiscal realities.

Figure 1

State Appropriations & Enhancement Goals

300-

o 250-
.2 200-

□ Enhancement Goal9
I Slate Approps

150-

^^^k

1986 1967 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993
Fiscal Year

But, as I have explained in an
earlier report, Preserving Enhance-
ment: A Plan for Strategic Academic
Reallocation, during APAC's delib-
erations, "...programmatic priorities
were determined consistent with
the 1989 Enhancement Plan, which
sets forth goals of excellence and
earmarks certain disciplinary
emphases for special attention: sup-
port of the traditional liberal arts
and sciences; public policy and in-
ternational affairs; technologies for
the twenty -first century; biological
and environmental sciences, and
the arts (p.l)."

The committee's thinking was
also guided by a set of criteria
(program centrality, quality, com-
plementarity to essential functions,
uniqueness, student demand, and
cost) previously identified and ap-
proved by the Campus Senate and
the president. Three objectives have
been identified in virtually every
recent campus long-range planning
exercise: recruiting outstanding un-
dergraduate and graduate students;
maintaining a core set of high-qual-
ity academic programs; and creat-
ing a highly diverse academic com-
munity. We should not assume that

these priorities reflect a unanimous
sentiment on the campus, or even
that those who support them now
would do so for all times and in all
circumstances, but they are goals
that have received broad and con-
sistent support over the last several
years. Any serious commitment to
the notion of shared governance
requires a good faith effort to im-
plement, and when necessary to try
to protect, these three priority ob-
jectives.

The Initial Impact of Budget Cuts
on Academic Units

Since APAC's specific program-
matic recommendations were fully
described in Preserving Enhance-
ment, they need not be repeated
here. It is appropriate, however, for
us to consider how the budget de-
cisions made over the last two
years have been consonant with
campus commitments to creating
and preserving a core set of quality
academic programs. The data are
given in Table I.

continued on page J

Table 1
Reductions in Academic Unit Budgets*

College

FY 91 Cuts-
Thousands

* *

FY 92 Cuts-
Thousands

* * *

Total Cut-
Two Years

Total
Perce

Cut-
ntage

AGRI

316.3

182.4

496.7

11.69

ARCH

32.0

81.1

113.1

7.02

ARHU

1.066.1

1,095.8

2,161.9

8.02

BSOS

773.6

818.3

1.591.9

3.18

BMGT

324.1

325.4

649.5

8.43

CMPS

1.673.4

1.252.7

2,926.1

9.79

CSC

881.1

825.8

1,706.9

14,86

EDUC

786.5

474.9

1,261.4

11.58

ENGR

1,100.6

908.8

2,009.4

9.24

HLHP

356.4

239.9

596,3

12.68

HUEC

160.0

148.9

308.9

9.31

JOUR

55.6

98.0

153.6

7.59

Libraries

729.9

856.6

1.586.5

10.37

CLIS

112.8

88.5

201.3

13.55

LFSC

804.5

508.4

1,312.9

10 47

PUAF

27.8

100.9

128.7

6.52

Totals

9,200.7

8,006.4

17.207.1

-

'Excludes reductions for the redeployment of Institutional Advancement Staff.
**FY 91 figures represent permanent reductions lo unit base budgets made in
working budget for FV 92.

***FY 92 figures represent one-time cuts; additional adjustments to the these
may be made during the present fiscal year.

the

figures

DECEMBER 12, 1991

An Interim Report from Provost J. Robert Dorfman

continued from page ,

Two observations immediately
emerge from these figures: (1) a
total of no less than $17,207,100 has
now been removed from our cam-
pus' academic units, a reduction of
truly gigantic proportions — com-
parable, in fact, with the elimina-
tion of the entire budget of a mid-
sized liberal arts college; and (2) an
even larger sum, roughly
$23,000,000, has been removed
from the non-academic portions of
the campus' budget. In the face of
cuts of such enormity, it has
proven impossible to hold any unit
completely free from harm. All we
can measure relative to APAC's
decisions is, therefore, relative de-
grees of damage inflicted on each
unit or college.

One can say, on the basis of per-
centages (in the last column of
Table 1), that the cuts appear gener-
ally consonant with APAC's assign-
ment of priority status to the arts
and sciences colleges and to several
units with a strong claim to nation-
al eminence. But percentages by
themselves can be misleading, as is
clear from the actual dollar
amounts extracted: the colleges that
have paid the most are, in general,
just the ones that had the most
available to pay — questions of
quality, centra lity, cost, and pop-
ularity notwithstanding. The reason
is easy to state but hard to live
with: when faced with the necessity
of making cuts of an enormous
magnitude on very short notice, it
was impossible to obtain such
sums without removing substantial
amounts from each and every one
of our larger units. A smaller
academic unit has only so much
available to revert, independent of
its standing on any number of pri-
ority scales.

It is therefore extremely impor-
tant that we recognize that "shel-
tering", if it is to be achieved, must
take place over the long haul, as
economies gained from program
restructuring are given sufficient
time to be realized. We remain
committed to this goal — to assem-
bling the resources freed up by
program restructuring for the pur-
pose of reallocation to our strong-
est and most central academic pro-
grams. But in the short run, all of
our programs, including our most
outstanding ones, have experienced
drastic reductions and incurred
significant damage. In order to
achieve a selective rather than an
across- uhe-board approach, there-
fore, it is also essential that recom-
mended programmatic reductions
be fully implemented in due
course. A failure to carry through
would destroy the possibility for
future economies and sink the in-
stitution into just the broad and
indiscriminate decline that we have
been seeking from the very outset
to avoid.

Table II

Graduate and Undergraduate Awards

^

1989-90

1990-91

1991-92

Grad Teaching
Assistants hips

1753

1876

1846

Regular Graduate
Fellowships

228

254*

235*

Banneker Scholar*

44

43

37

F.S Key Scholar"

44

50

29

'Funds allocated In both years sufficient to make 230 awards; larger number of awards due to higher

than anticipated acceptance rate.
"Includes both 'lull ride' and partial awards.

Recruiting Talented Students

The campus does appear to have
largely succeeded in sheltering
from serious harm its primary
scholarship and fellowship award
programs, as Table II shows.

Graduate assistantships play an
essential role in the health of our
graduate programs, but they play
no less vital a role in support of
undergraduate instruction. It was
precisely that dual character that
led so many colleges to make large
increases in their assistantship bud-
gets during "the growth years" of
1989 and 1990. It is then quite re-
markable (I would say bordering
on the miraculous) that the number
of graduate teaching assistantships
has remained virtually unchanged
over the most recent three-year
period. Key and Banneker scholar-
ship programs have been con-
tinued, although fewer initial
awards were made in the spring of
1991. In order to continue the Key
and Banneker programs at all for
91-92, $300,000 had to be allocated,
while at the same time we had to
revert $40 million to the state. The
number of graduate fellowships
awarded for 1991-92 dropped
slightly, but remains well above the
level of recent years {e.g. as com-
pared to only 178 fellowships
awarded in 1989).

Commitments made prior to the
budget crisis have led to scheduled
renovations in Anne Arundel Hall
for the remodeled University

Honors Program, and we have just
opened the new International
House to i ts first-year group of oc-
cupants. The rich and varied pro-
grams of the Language House (St.
Mary's) have been an extraordinary
success, both in our intended objec-
tive of providing a foreign-lan-
guage immersion experience, and
in aiding in recruiting outstanding
students to the campus.

The Campus' Commitment to Di-
versity

The figures presented in Table
III indicate that efforts to increase

continued on page 4

Table III
Minority and Women Faculty at College Park*

1991-92

TENURED

Black

Hispanic

Asian

Native American

UNTENURED

Black

Hispanic

Asian

Native American

TENURED

Women

UNTENURED

Women

TENURED"

Total Faculty

UNTENUHED'"
Total Faculty

1989-90

26

11
55
3

21
7
20

169

101
1146

372

1990-91

33 (+27%)

31 (-6%)

11 (--)

12 (+9%)

55 {--)

57 (+3.6%)

J ;*33%;

«H

22 (+4.8%)

19 (-13.6%)

7(~>

8 (+14.3%)

33 (+65%)

31 (-6%)

175 (+3.5%)

183 (+4.6%)

103 (+2.0%)

105 (+2.0%)

11 55 (+.8%)

11 18 (-3.2%)

372 {-)

371 (-.3%)

'Dala reported (or all tenure-track U.S. citizens or permanent residents; source: OIS Report, full-Time
and Part-Time Employees by Race, Sea, and EEQ Category : percentages represent increased ecre a se
relative to preceding year.
"Associate and Full Professors
■"Assistant Professors

DECEMBER 12, 1991

K

An Interim Report from Provost J. Robert Dorfman

continued firm />t<gc

the representation of women and
minorities on the faculty have also
led to generally positive results.

A decline in the total number of
black faculty at College Park, in
both the tenured and untenured
categories, is a cause for real con-
cern. Clearly, we face a major chal-
lenge.

In the last academic year, we
were able to use our six minority/
senior women faculty positions, as
well as other department and col-
lege resources, to bring a total of
five African -American faculty and
10 women faculty to our campus.

We will endeavor to do the same
or better this year. The decline in
the number of tenured faculty from
1155 to 1118 over the last year re-
flects the hiring freeze (many ten-
ured faculty who resigned were
not replaced) as well as the in-
creased number of faculty who
have elected to retire-
But there has been significant
progress in two related areas.
There are now ten recipients of the
new Postdoctoral Fellowships for
Black American Scholars in resi-
dence on the College Park campus.
The numbers of minority and
women graduate students have al-
so increased significantly over the
last three-year period, as shown in
Table IV.

These trends can be correlated
in part with increases in the fellow-
ship support available at College
Park for minority students (e.g. an
increase in the number of Black
Graduate Student Fellowships from
the 74 awarded in 1989-90 to the
129 awarded in 1991-92; and an in-
crease in the Other Minorities Fel-
lowship Program from none in
1989-90 to 19 in 1991-92). The in-
creased numbers of minority and
women graduate students also re-
flect concerted recruitment efforts
carried out in several departments.

Of at least equal importance to
the institution arc the efforts aimed
at formally integrating diverse cul-
tural and gender perspectives into
our curricula. The week-long ex-
plorations of Diversity Week, the
recently revived Africa and the
Americas program, and the Curric-
ulum Transformation initiative are
three examples of this ongoing ef-
fort. What is at stake in these activ-
ities is both the enrichment of our
community life as well as an en-
hancement of the education we
provide to our students. These in-
itiatives continue, budget cuts not-
withstanding.

The Other Side of the Story

I have so far tried to describe
the results of a series of concerted
efforts to protect some of the key
programs on the campus. In all
fairness, and to avoid creating an
unfortunate misimpression, we all
need to know what we have not
managed to protect. The faculty

continued an pttge 5

Table IV
Women and Minority Graduate Students at College Park

1989-90

1990-91

1991-92

Black

498

552 (+10.8%)"

617 (+11.8%)

Hispanic

158

143 (-9.5%)

168 (+17.5%)

Asian

315

342 (+8.6%)

349 (+2.0%)

Native American

14

12 (-14%)

16 (+33.3%)

Women

4,333

4,459 (+2.9%)

4.473 (+.3%)

'Source: Ollice of Graduate Studies and Research.

"Percentages represent increase/decrease relative to preceding year.

OUT

O

DECEMBER 12, 1991

An Interim Report from Provost J. Robert Dorfman

continued from fuif>e -t

hardly need me to tctl them what it
has meant to them to have to try to
operate without access to funds for
much-needed research support,
without xeroxing and long-distance
telephoning, with larger classes,
and with increasing teaching loads.
Classified and Associate staff also
do not need me to tell them what it
has meant for them to have to
work longer hours for the same
pay, and to feel that the state has
sought to solve its financial prob-
lems by taking money out of their
pockets, and laying off significant
numbers of them.

But a few examples may give
some sense of the magnitude of
our difficulties. The campus library
system has now lost so many of
their staff members due to resigna-
tions and a freeze on hiring re-
placements that their total work
force has dropped to a level last
seen during the 1960s — before there
were even branch libraries to staff.

The four arts and science colleges
themselves have collectively lost a
total of $7 million altogether. The
College of Engineering, the College
of Computer, Math and Physical
Sciences, and the College of Arts
and Humanities have each lost
more than $2 million during the
same period. The magnitude of the
impact of these cuts, when con-
sidered in terms of the amount of
needed equipment not purchased,
the number of routine operations
curtailed, and the impact on our
teaching and research programs,
and our service is simply immense.

It is difficult to underestimate
the effects of these cuts on our re-
search endeavors. Much needed
equipment — vital for research in
the sciences and engineering — has
not been purchased; junior faculty
— the source of many new and cre-
ative ideas — have not been hired in
anything like the usual numbers;
and our support for graduate stu-
dents has been placed in jeopardy.
If it were not for the DRIF alloca-
tions to the colleges and depart-
ments, our research programs
would be in even worse shape than
they are now. Special efforts must
continue to be made to protect our
research and scholarly enterprise. It
is, after all, the fuel that powers the
dynamic intellectual and creative
growth of the university.

in spite of concerted efforts in
all the colleges also to protect in-
structional budgets, there has also
been a significant general decline
over the last three years in the
overall number of undergraduate
sections offered (an average decline
of -5.86% over each of the last three
semesters).

term commitments are made.

While there are grounds for con-
cern about the quantity of available
undergraduate courses, it is worth
noting that a number of efforts to
preserve and improve the quality
of undergraduate education remain
under way: I first mention the
heroic work of the ACCESS com-
mittee which maintains the day-to-
day supervision of our under-
graduate USP and CORE course
resources. This committee assesses
the need for seats in various areas
and recommends resource shifts in
order to meet emergency needs.
ACCESS has prevented disasters on
a number of occasions, but most
particularly, for spring '92. In addi-
tion, it is advisory to other innova-
tions designed to improve under-
graduate education, such as the im-
plementation of the new University
Honors Program, the Curriculum
Transformation Project, the pro-
grams of the newly created Center
for Teaching Excellence, and the
Distinguished Scholar-Teacher pro-
gram. We have, in short, managed
to continue some of our enhance-
ment efforts while simultaneously
reverting $40,000,000 from other
sources.

The Foreseeable Future

As of today, December 2, 1991,
we expect that the state will assess
additional cuts to public higher
education as it tries to deal with a
current FY92 deficit of close to $200
million. While contingency plans

tiiii! iiiiu'il mi page d

Table V
Number of Sections of Undergraduate Courses Offered*

Fall
Spring

1989-90

4,468
4,195

1990-91

4,51 1 (+.9%)*'
4,054 (-3.3%)

1991-92
4,142 (-8.2%)
3.807 (-6.1%)

"Excludes tabs, discussion sections, and independent studies sections.
"Percentages represent increase/decrease relative to preceding year.

I believe that the decline in these
numbers can be attributed almost
entirely to reductions in the num-
bers of our part-time instructors
and lecturers. Since persons in
these ranks have for some time ac-
counted for a significant portion of
our undergraduate instructional
capacity, any mandate to come up
with large amounts of money on
very short notice will inevitably
have the most serious effect in that
region of the budget where short-

DECEMBER 12, 1991

O

An Interim Report from Provost J. Robert Dorfman

t'fint/trnett fn>w pnyv

have been developed for such a
possibility, additional cuts to the
UMCP budget will continue to
have a drastic impact. Academic
support units and colleges have
been asked to "set aside" two per-
cent of their state supported FY92
budgets in order to provide funds
for the anticipated assessment from
the state (through the System).
While the "set aside" has been as-
sessed in a uniform, across-the-
board way, the actual amount of
funds taken from each unit will be
more in accord with the APAC pri-
orities.

The situation with respect to
FY93 looks, at the moment, even
more problematic than FY92 has
been so far. The state is projecting
an additional budget deficit of ap-
proximately $700 million. The con-
sequences of such a deficit, if not
significantly reduced by a tax in-
crease, are almost unthinkable for
the state, as well as for our univer-
sity. We will have some clear idea

about the situation in early spring
92, when the legislature has had a
chance to deal with budget and
taxation issues. As part of our FY
93 planning process, we have been
planning for a reversion of some 60
additional lines from Academic Af-
fairs alone to the state as of July 1,
1992. Academic units have already
been informed of their line assess-
ment and are making arrangements
to identify the lines. However,
within the past few weeks, College
Park has been given some flexi-
bility to rearrange our FY93 bud-
get, and there is now a good pos-
sibility that not all 60 lines will
need to be reverted.

The most vital questions at the
moment are: (1) How will we be
able to protect campus programs of
the highest priority during the
coming year or two? (2) How will
we keep our most productive facul-
ty, staff and students? and (3) What
can we do to protect our student
body from further erosion in the
academic programs?

The Strategic Planning Com-
mittee is grappling with these cen-
tral problems. We must find
solutions! We must erect a protec-
tive "fence" around our units— both
academic and non-academic. We
must find a way to address the sal-
ary issues that make it difficult to
attract and /or retain our best facul-
ty, graduate students and staff.
And we must find a way to keep
our class sections from increasing
in size, and from demanding less
personal involvement of students
through writing assignments and
oral presentations. The next few
months are going to be largely
spent in addressing these issues.

Conclusion

This report has tried to describe
what we have been able to accomp-
lish in the way of protecting our
highest priority objectives so far,
and to outline the problems of the

near future. 1 dare say no one will
be happy with the results. I certain-
ly am not. There can be no gainsay-
ing that the impact of the cuts on
campus programs has been broad,
deep, and devastating. Even the
modest success we have had in
limiting damage in a few key areas
has required Herculean labors on
the part of many individuals — by
the faculty who first helped to
identify areas of relatively lower
priority; by deans who were made
to serve both as recipients and dis-
pensers of bad news; and by de-
partment chairs who were asked to
shelter a few special items at the
price of doing terrible things to
other budgets they spent years
patiently nurturing into good
health.

In the weeks and months ahead
we will need to carry through the
difficult tasks of programmatic re-
structuring, of recruiting and re-
taining our best students, staff and
faculty, and of achieving the diver-
sity goals we have set ourselves.
Priority setting has gone on, and is
continuing to go on, within the di-
visions of Administrative and Stu-
dent Affairs just as within Aca-
demic Affairs. In addition to the
priority setting function mentioned
above, the Strategic Planning Com-
mittee is also presently working to
identify possible campus— wide
economies. Several of the commit-
tees now at work on the Middle
States Periodic Review Report will
also be making recommendations
on how best to operate during this
difficult period.

As circumstances warrant I will
report back to the campus at a fu-
ture date. In the meantime I hope
you will join me and many of your
colleagues in our efforts to con-
vince our state officials and fellow
citizens that these cuts have put the
well-being of the College Park cam-
pus — and therefore the long-term
interests of the state of Maryland
— directly at risk. In the long run,
the only way to protect our highest
priority objectives in any realistic
sense is to restore the funds whose
removal has placed them in such
serious jeopardy. ■

DECEMBER 12, 1991

APAC Considers Program Closings

continued from page I

principles, criteria and priorities
developed by the Senate Executive
Committee as well as a preferred
strategy to identify reductions and
redirect resources from less critical
to more critical program needs,
each dean developed a set of
recommendations. Then APAC
conducted a series of meetings
with individual deans to discuss
these plans and develop recom-
mendations for consideration by
Dorfman.

Report Identifies 11 Units

Once completed, this process
resulted in a report delivered to the
president by the provost on March
1, 1991. Preserving Enhancement: A
Plan for Strategic Academic Realloca-
tion was based on APAC's meet-
ings with the deans, and its recom-
mendations relied on considera-
tions of both qualitative and quan-
titative measures including excel-
lence, centrality, quality of gradu-
ate students, research and service
to the state. In addition, the Advis-
ory Committee on Course Enroll-
ment Statistics and Strategies
(ACCESS) had looked at each
dean's plan for its possible effect
on the availability of courses for
undergraduates and provided
APAC with impact statements and
information used to help formulate
the report recommendations.

The report identified nine pro-
grams and two colleges for review
of a variety of actions, including
possible realignment, merger, fur-
ther reduction, or elimination.
These recommendations, according
to the report, would "in the long
term, ...allow the institution to
move towards the realization of its
strategic goals by using its
resources more effectively."

The programs recommended for
review were Agricultural and
Extension Education; Hearing and
Speech Sciences; Housing and
Design; Industrial, Technological
and Occupational Education;
Microbiology; Nuclear Engineering;
Radio-Television-Film; Recreation;
and Urban Studies. Colleges recom-
mended for review and possible
change were Human Ecology and
Library and Information Services.

Other Areas to be Reviewed

In addition, the report also
recommended that several other
areas scattered among various aca-
demic units should be reviewed for
possible change.

It recommended that committpp*;
review the following:

■ realignment, coordination, or
consolidation of programs concern-
ing environmental science and pol-
icy;

■ realignment, coordination, or
consolidation of programs concern-
ing the general area of food science
and nutrition studies;

■ coordination of programs con-
cerning decision and information
sciences;

In addition, as part of the long-
range strategic planning process,
some further areas were suggested
for examination, including:

■ a "Holmes" committee to look
at the education programs;

■ a review of the advertising
sequence in Journalism;

■ the nuclear reactor, for possi-
ble shut down;

■ a proposal to consider teach-
ing undergraduate core courses in
the School of Public Affairs.

Committee Puts in Long Hours

Eighteen faculty-student com-
mittees began the process of look-
ing at possible elimination, reduc-
tion, reorganization, or merger of
programs. They met regularly
throughout the summer, with
many members attending meetings
while on sabbatical or not working
on campus during the summer.
The process continued throughout
this fall and, for most recommen-
dations will end in late December
1991 when a few more open hear-
ings have been concluded.

The initial reports of the com-
mittees were delivered to deans
who responded immediately, and
open hearings to receive commun-
ity input were held over the past
two months so that APAC could
listen to the views of those affected
by the possible changes.

It is important to note that, from
the outset, this rigorous process has
been in accordance with the Univer-
sity of Maryland at College Park Pro-
cedures for Reduction, Consolidation,
Transfer or Discontinuance of Pro-
grams.

Time Line Developed

The table on page eight shows
the time line for these steps, with
each program's time line moving
from the due date of the first
report and when it was actually
received, to the dean's response to
that report, to the first APAC com-
mittee meeting that considered the
recommendations, to an open hear-
ing date, to a second APAC meet-
ing held to review the results of the
dean's comments and the open
hearing statements, reassess its ini-
tial recommendations and vote on
its recommendations for inclusion
in a report to be handed on from
APAC to Provost Dorfman in
January 1992. Before completing its
work, APAC will assess the overall
impact of the entire set of recom-
mendations.

The composite report will be
considered by the provost and for-
warded by Dorfman through the
president to the Campus Senate
before the end of January, accord-
ing to current estimates. At that
time the Senate Executive Commit-

tee will forward the report to the
Campus Senate PCC. Any recom-
mendations that will not require
senate action will not be included
in this batch of recommendations,
indicates Dorfman.

Decisions Expected Next Spring

The PCC committee has said it
will try to respond to the recom-
mendations within six weeks.
Assuming the plan stays on sched-
ule, according to senate chair Jerry
Miller, the senate plans to hold
meetings to discuss the final
recommendations for possible pro-
gram reduction, elimination,
reorganization, or merger in April
and May 1992 in order to complete
the process by the end of the
spring semester.

From the outset of this time-con-
suming process, decisions were
reached only after careful delibera-
tion of each step and concern for
the programs involved, say APAC
members.

APAC based its recommenda-
tions on a number of factors,
including reliance on recommenda-
tions of the deans and their facul-
ties to the extent possible, deviating
primarily when a dean proposed
across-the-board cuts, proposed
reductions in a large number of
graduate assistantships, or recom-
mended a program closing action
that APAC felt could not be justi-
fied from the campuswide perspec-
tive.

University Policies Followed

Crucial to these decisions was
APAC's determination to minimize
the number of tenured faculty dis-
rupted as well as to cause the least
disruption possible to faculty and
students. As part of this plan,
APAC stated its intention to honor
and go beyond the commitments
stated in the procedures of the Uni-
versity of Maryland at College Park
Procedures for Reduction, Consolida-
tion, Transfer or Discontinuance of
Programs, approved by the senate
and president.

This policy calls for the follow-
ing: "a) Students whose access to
required course offerings is affected
by academic reorganization should
be afforded reasonable opportuni-
ties to complete their required
coursework either at this institution
or through cooperative arrange-
ments and transfer of credit from
other colleges and universities both
within and outside the University
of Maryland System; and b) Ten-
ured faculty on lines that are termi-
nated or transferred should be
reassigned to teaching and /or
research in related programs or
units or to administrative duties
when qualified for the position and
where the need exists. Thereafter,

Continued on peine &

DECEMBER 12, 1991

O

APAC Considers Program Closings

continued from page

APAC Committee Status

Committee

Due Date

Received

Dean Resp

APAC1

Hearing

APAC 2

AEED

06/28/91

09/11/91

09/11/91

09/19/91

10/08/91

10/10/91

CLIS Relocation

10/15/91

10/16/91

10/16/91

10/24/91

11/12/91

11/14/91

CLIS Grad Programs

09/09/91

09/12/91

09/18/91

09/26/91

11/12/91

11/14/91

EDIT

09/09/91

09/17/91

10/29/91

11/21/91

11/22/91

12/05/91

ENNU

09/09/91

09/09/91

09/09/91

09/19/91

Environment Science

01/31/92

HESP

10/15/91

10/19/91

10/30/91

11/21/91

12/02/91

12/05/91

HLHP Structure

01/31/92

HSAD

09/09/91

09/09/91

10/01/91

10/10/91

10/21/91

10/24/91

HUEC

10/09/91

12/06/91

12/06/91

12/12/91

12/17/91

12/19/91

HOLMES

01/31/92

Info Science

01/31/92

JOUR

10/15/91

11/14/91

11/14/91

MICB

06/28/91

07/13/91

07/13/91

09/19/91

11/14/91

Nuclear Reactor

01/31/92

PUAF

01/31/92

RECR

09/09/91

09/18/91

09/18/91

09/26/91

11/06/91

11/14/91

RTVF

10/15/91

10/22/91

10/22/91

11/07/91

11/13/91

12/05/91

IfflBS

09/09/91

09/09/91

10/05/91

10/17/91

10/30/91

11/07/91

similar consideration should be
accorded instructors and lecturers
who have achieved more than
seven years continuous full-time
service, as per Section I.C.I 3. of the

To observe the intent of these
policies, the provost indicated he
intends to find a position for every
tenured faculty member currently
in any of the affected units and
also will ensure that students in
these units are afforded reasonable
opportunities to complete their
degrees on this campus.

Library College Spared

As to what final recommenda-
tions APAC will make, these must
await the end of this month for
APAC to complete its hearings and
discussions, and to formulate and
review an integrated package of
recommendations. It is known,
however, that a few of the original
recommendations contained in Pre-
serving Enhancement have been

reversed. As a result of compelling
evidence produced in the commit-
tee reports and the open hearing,
APAC will recommend that the
College of Library and Information
Services be left intact. Additionally,
Nuclear Engineering (and the
nuclear reactor) will remain
untouched, due to negotiations
resulting in financial support from
University College.

But whatever the final outcome,
APAC members have tried to make
it clear that they have taken their
responsibilities very seriously and
have studied every possible
approach before deciding the fate
of a unit. With two-hour weekly
meetings, open hearings, and the
need to study large amounts of
documentation and program sub-
missions, APAC members have car-
ried a load close to an additional
course in their efforts to give care-
ful consideration to each recom-
mendation.

As Dorfman puts it, "This strate-
gic planning process was begun
with the hope that the budgetary
situation of the university would
improve in the near term. That
hope has proven to be unrealistic.
Any plan designed to eliminate
programs is very painful for an
academic community, and APAC
has taken on this unenviable job
with great reluctance and has made
decisions only after careful consi-
deration of many alternatives. It is
only through this kind of setting of
critical priorities and redistribution
of resources that the university can
hope to remain on the course it has
set for itself." ■

Roz Hiebert

o

DECEMBER 12, 199]