Some Sample Cuts at UCSB

UCSB Library: standing orders to university presses canceled. Purchase of individual books by request.

Korean Language Program- Program cancelled,  2 lecturers laid off effective July 1, 2010

Extension campus at Santa Maria (serving adults with day jobs) -closed
Extension campus at Ventura - to be closed

German, Slavic & Semitic:  required to cut $24,000 by October 26.
 Comp Lit. ( whose budget consists of a few TA-ships) had to cut $5,000 (i.e. one TA-ship).
Nearly all chairs seem to have received similar notices.

Film and Media won't have a business officer as of Nov. 1,
Religious Studies will be in the same position
GSS/ Comp.Lit will be without the strategically crucial Graduate Program Advisor. 

ART HISTORY CUTS:

STAFF:  everyone (Art Dept, Art History, University Art Museum) in the Arts building will be sharing staff.  The project is a mess because it is unclear how the rank of the job and the seniority of the person are going to be calculated (I've heard that a lower ranking position but more seniority will be beaten by a higher ranking position with less seniority) -- there is absolutely no model for this at this point.  The logistics still need to be worked out.  I have also heard that History/East Asian/Religious Studies has been proposed, and it seems to be happening everywhere.  It would be nice to know where these orders are issuing from.

IMPACT on GRADS:  Incoming graduate class was also reduced, and the only reason we got much of anything was because of the Central Fellowships.  Our own packages were almost insulting, and we didn't even bother to go after the best applicants (knowing we'd be outbid by everyone).  International students are not even a possibility.

TASHIPS:  We had to cut our TAships which meant a substantial reduction in what we could offer to grad applicants in terms of support -- and needless to say it has an impact on undergrad education too.  We just about took care of the grads we have, but just.  Next year we fully expect a much more draconian cut in TAships, and therefore a further reduction of grad students.  NO TAships for upper division courses no matter how high the enrollment.  Money for readers is waning.

MINI GRANTS; TRAVEL FUNDS:  The elimination of mini-grants through Instructional Resources has been a disaster for my department because it's one of the only ways to fund new digital images for new classes, or updating classes already on the books.  I'm sure it adversely affects many other areas on campus.  Academic Senate grants for travel and research have been reduced substantially (the award $ for travel has been reduced).  This has a big impact on the humanities in particular.

ARTS LIBRARY:  Hours have been cut back; they close early on a couple of evenings and Saturdays they are closed, so access is much more limited.  The Arts Library was the library system-wide for exhibition catalogs.  We have an extensive catalog collection -- most of this is not funded by the contract agreements the library has negotiated.  Our contract with World Wide, the service that regularly sent us catalogs from all over the world, was cut.  Now it is up to the librarians to figure out which catalogs we might be able to get -- a much more difficult process and certainly international catalogs are few and far between.  Some may remember that the Arts Library took an 85% cut over a three year period, and while protests from many humanities departments produced a one-time sum of money to help offset the damage, we are basically no longer getting major catalog exhibitions unless there is a request made by faculty.  Serials have been cut substantially.

THOSE LUXURIOUS AMENITIES:  Phones are gone, classes are getting much larger and anything but our large surveys have nothing but readers (if that) to help faculty pick up the grading.  We've been asked to try to maintain enrollments in our lower div courses (approx 650+ students) with the possibility of having only a couple of TAs.

DEPARTMENT OF CHEMISTY

Last year, Chemistry had an effective 7.5%  cut to the  budget, amounting to ~$110,000. Additionally, there was a temporary emergency budget cut of 2.3%  implemented, amounting to ~$34,000. There was a 5.3% cut to temporary sub-0 funds [permanent faculty lines] amounting to $51,000, i.e.  T.A.ship.

As a consequence, there are no more T.A.s for graduate classes and many  other T.A. positions canceled or reduced. Also,  as a consequence, only first year graduate students have guaranteed T.A.  positions. The rest have to be supported through grants that puts a huge burden on the already tense grant situation of the faculty. Thus, unlike previous years, many admitted graduate students will end up NOT finding advisors who are willing to pay for them, and thus leave the program.

For this year, the Department was asked to come up with two budget cut scenarios, one for an additional 8% cut ($106,000) and one for 12% cut ($160,000). Note that the 8 or 12% cut scenario is in addition to the 7.5% + 2.3%! There are further threats, but no explicit requests yet, regarding cuts to T.A. positions, in addition to the 5.3% cut implemented already.

Thus far, 4 staff positions will be discontinued upon retirement, one (extremely valuable) machinist and 3 staff positions. Depending on next year's exact budget cut number, 1 of them may be continued at a much reduced level and cost. However, chem dept's MSO states that there is no way to make the 12% cut work without laying off another 1-2 staff positions (Staff does not necessarily mean administrator. These can be IT personnel or scientists supervising instrument facilities or chemistry labs etc.) Thus far, usage of facilities (instrumentation, glass shop, machine shop, wood shop, etc) used to be subsidized, which now will have to be cut significantly. Needless to say, all sorts of small services (mailing service, phone service, copy & fax, etc) or money to host seminar speakers (was not much anyway) will need to be cut down, but as our business officer said, all of these "luxury" articles are just nickels & dimes compared to other significant items.

One chemistry faculty member writes: I will tell you about a cut that affects me personally.

I got 7% salary cut, and so did my husband (who also is a faculty at UCSB). In his case, there is another >$5,000 cut of summer salary because summer classes will now (permanently) be compensated with 1/12th of the salary and NOT with 1/9th of the salary (as it used to be). The
UCSB Day care (UCSB Early Childhood Care & Education Services) increased their fees this year by 8%, and will continue this fee increase in 4 consecutive years with 8% per year! Of course, their subsidy fell off, too. In addition, they will take a certain amount of furlough days (i.e. reducing service, while increasing fees) while both my husband and I will not take any furlough days. This is a triple hit (1. salary cut 2. fee increase 3. service reduction). Imagine the situation of students with a child. They will experience a fee hike of up to 40%, a day care cost increase of up to 36% (within 4 years) and a much reduced quality of education.