EDITORIAL: Why we walked out, whether you did or not

We heard about the walkout. We heard the snide comments about how it’s pointless or stupid or counter-intuitive.

We still showed up. Here’s why.

Objection #1: Why did you walk out of a class you already paid for?

Because the degree we want – the reason we take classes – won’t be worth the paper it’s printed on if these budget cuts go through. We would rather sacrifice the time and money equivalent to one class meeting than see the thousands of dollars we’ve poured into our education go to waste.

Objection #2: Protests won’t work. Only voting can make a difference.

Legislators do listen. Maybe not every one, every time, but they do. They must. Even if they have no personal care for the welfare of their constituents, they care about being re-elected, and every representative knows better than to go the will of an informed public with a strong voice.

Plus, we’re stuck with the representatives we’ve got for now, so this is really a moot point. We have only the choice to fight or to stand by and watch our state be decimated.

Objection #3: This protest will be forgotten in a week. Don’t waste your time.

Your education will be worse than forgotten if we don’t stand up for right. The product of your hard work will be torn away from you and left to rot, an ugly, stinking reminder that you spent years here and then didn’t care enough to fight for them to mean something.

Objection #4: Suck it up and pay the higher tuition. In my day we had to earn our way through college. You’ve got it easy.

This is hardly about tuition. Sure, we would like to continue paying UNLV’s relatively low student fees, but we know we’ll have to come up with more money somehow and we’re prepared to pay a little more.

What we are not willing to do is shoulder the burden of the state’s nearly $900 million deficit.

We oppose the Internal Finance Committee’s recommendation to cut $110 million from the Nevada System of Higher Education: not because we want an easy go of it, but because that plan is short-sighted and dangerous for Nevada.

We are this state’s best hope for a bright future, so rain or shine, come hell or high water, we’re going to shout until someone hears us.

Make no mistake, we plan to win with or without the naysayers, but the sooner you use your brain and jump on board, the better chance we’ll all have at saving the spirit of this institution.

We know we are worth more than the price of a class. We are worth more than a sore throat from yelling outside the Grant Sawyer Building, more than freezing to the bone in the pouring rain.

And even if all you’re doing is sitting in judgment, we’re standing up for you, too.

Making the case for education

Community protests cuts at finance committee hearing Read more

“An absurd proposition”

The budget cuts facing Nevada’s colleges and universities may lead to “literally destroying the system that has taken decades to build and will take as long or more to rebuild,” Chancellor Dan Klaich said at Tuesday’s special Board of Regents meeting.

The Nevada System of Higher Education faces the possibility of a cut of $37 million in the 2010 fiscal year and $110 million in the 2011 fiscal year as a result of a projected 22 percent cut in the state’s general fund.

The board met to review the impact of the projections, set at the Jan. 22 Economic Forum meeting where it was determined that Nevada could face a budget deficit of more than $800 million, and explore the option of financial exigency – a declaration that there is not enough money to cover system expenses.

Klaich outlined the drastic impacts the cuts would have on the system with three scenarios that would cut the budget by the necessary $110 million: A 20 percent pay cut across the board, an additional 5 furlough days for faculty and staff or 1,290 layoffs system-wide.

According to Klaich, any of these moves would also require the board to declare exigency.

NSHE would be the first educational system in the United States to take that action.

“We would be the poster child. That’s a terrible burden,” said University of Nevada, Reno President Milton Glick.

Regents Chairman James Dean Leavitt said he had already asked his staff to prepare the needed paperwork to declare exigency, so it would be ready in case it was needed for the March Board of Regents meeting.

Klaich explained that another option is to collect additional student fees to fill the deficit.

Given this scenario, all students in NSHE institutions would see a 48 percent increase in fees on top of the 39 percent increase passed over the last five years: the undergraduate fee would increase to $232 per credit and the graduate fee would be $345 per credit.

These figures would raise sufficient funds assuming current enrollment levels persist. But, Klaich estimated that at those rates, approximately 15,750 students would be unable to enroll, further decreasing revenue and forcing institutions to cut full-time faculty and staff by approximately 1,025.

According to Klaich, other options are being considered before taking any action.

The chancellor is meeting with the State Legislature’s Interim Finance Committee today to begin the process of hearings and town hall meetings to discuss the budget cuts.

Governor Jim Gibbons is expected to address the statewide budget crisis in his State of the State address on Monday, Feb. 8.

Further discussion of the budget matter, and possibly action, is expected to take place at the March 4 Board of Regents meeting.

“I do not recommend that you take any precipitous actions,” Klaich told the Regents. “We will have time for that in the very near future when we better know what we have to deal with.”

Leavitt described it as “a historic day.”

“When the Economic Commission spoke,” he said, “the Earth stood still.”

“I think our collective breath was taken away and our planning to date became moot on that terrible Friday afternoon,” said Klaich, describing the shift he and the presidents of Nevada’s eight public higher education institutions were forced to make when they learned the figures.

Klaich and the presidents had been working under the previous 8 percent budget cut figure throughout the winter break and were shocked when the new number was announced in January.

Four days after receiving the news, the leaders met to discuss how the cuts would be taken if they pass the legislature and how each institution would be affected. Klaich explained that dealing with the proposition meant throwing out all the careful plans the group had made.

“We are unwinding almost a decade of significant progress in higher education and being asked to do it in a few weeks,” he said. ”This is truly an absurd proposition and no one should confuse what we are discussing with the kind of carefully thought out plans that would normally accompany changes of this magnitude.”

Klaich lamented the conditions he said would be the result of these cuts:

First, he said students will be turned away, worsening the conditions that have led Nevada to stand at 50th in the nation for the chance of a high school student to finish an undergraduate degree on time.

He said the quality of faculty will be impacted, as will externally funded research.

“We will lose the ability to train the workforce necessary for the very economy we wish to attract,” he continued. “Nevadans who in record numbers wish to upgrade their skills to move off the unemployment rolls will be told ‘there is no room.’”

Schools, departments or colleges will be lost and operations and maintenance will be deferred, Klaich predicted.

“We will own some of the worst higher education funding in the country, a powerful disincentive to any company wanting to relocate in Nevada… We will drive Nevadans and Nevada businesses out of state… We will own a system of higher education that does not match our spirit, our needs or the goals of this state.”

CURRENT BUDGET CUT IMPACTS:

UNLV:

Eliminated 100 faculty and 281 staff positions, cut more than 100 class sections and 30 percent of the budget for part time instructors. Two colleges merged.

University of Nevada, Reno:

Eliminated 281 positions, equal to 13 percent of the state-funded work force, along with sharp reductions to writing and math centers.

Nevada State College:

Eliminated a vice presidential position.

College of Southern Nevada:

Henderson business operations closed, Tropicana site to improve articulation to UNLV closed.

Great Basin College:

Deferred a million dollars in maintenance and left 1012 vacancies, equal to 10 percent of its workforce.

Western Nevada College:

Hiring freeze in effect since 2007 and instituting a voluntary workload increase.

Desert Research Institute:

Eliminated a vice presidential position and terminated a decades-long cloud seeding program.

Truckee Meadows Community College:

Reduced its testing center, its career center and its placement center, combined two vice presidential positions and is down 59 positions.

Students take stand, walk out

UNLV students have been mobilized into battle, and their battle plan will be a walkout. Read more

EDITORIAL: Death to the plan: Life to education

Nevada students are not fighting for their education because they’re greedy, naïve or misinformed. We are not fighting because we want to pay comfortable tuition rates or because we want to be able to say we attended a fancy school.

We are the voice of reason. We know that crippling the Nevada System of Higher Education beyond repair and throwing away decades of progress – decades worth of education that it cost money to build – is a very wrong choice.

At the least, it is fiscally irresponsible – a sign of fundamental misunderstanding of simple economics.

At worst, it is a willful turning away from any attempt to salvage the economy of this state. It is a statement that it is the right choice to let die the notion of Nevada as a viable place to live.

Cutting education is not the only option. It is not one of several options. It is not even the worst of many options.

Cutting education is no option at all.

If the leaders of this state want to have a budget left to manage, let them hear this: Nevada needs higher education more than any other state institution. Nevada must pour every available cent into education if it is to have any hope of saving the rest.

If we do not feed our most valuable resource, we cannot expect to retain the others – we do not deserve the others.

Chancellor Dan Klaich said it best at Tuesday’s meeting:

“We will lose the ability to train the workforce necessary for the very economy we wish to attract… We will own some of the worst higher education funding in the country, a powerful disincentive to any company wanting to relocate in Nevada… We will drive Nevadans and Nevada businesses out of state.”

Do not for a minute think that funding education is not possible in this economy.

Florida is our sister state in this crisis of education funding. They face the second deepest deficit. We have the first.

While Nevada Governor Jim Gibbons glares at the faces of the students, businesses, individuals and families he has lain on the chopping block with his plans to require $110 million in cuts to NSHE, Governor Charlie Crist of Florida has recommended a $100 million increase in annual state university spending.

It’s part of the five-year goal of $1.75 billion that he plans to send to the state’s 11 public universities.

They’re calling it the New Florida plan – they want a “knowledge-based economy.”

We have no such knowledge among the voices of this state’s economic planners.

Florida’s new public education money will fund science, technology, engineering, math and medical research and $100 million is proposed in incentives to attract research institutes.

We’ll watch our dreams of becoming forerunners in sustainability research flounder as we struggle to keep our schools accredited.

Governor Crist has proposed no tuition increases.

Governor Gibbons would see Nevada’s own turned away, unable to pay the thousands more per year it would take to earn the meager education a Nevada school could provide.

It can be done. Florida is doing it. Why is Nevada failing?

Of one thing we can be sure: We, students and faculty of the Nevada System of Higher Education, are not the reason.

We flatly refuse to be.

We are the voices raised above the dim of devastating self-interest and short-sightedness. Ours are the fists clenched, the jaws set, the hearts beating.

Ours are the minds driven by reason, rationality and compassion. Ours are the souls that know right from wrong.

If our future here is to die, our voices will die with it, exhausted from a lifetime of shouting at the tops of our lungs, “We will never stand for this!”

The toll on university athletics

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Smatresk meets student press

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One department’s unique philosophy

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President Smatresk speaks on the State of the University

Budget, goals for university among topics of address

Outlining his plans for the upcoming year, newly-appointed UNLV president Neal Smatresk gave his first State of the University address in the Student Union Ballroom on Tuesday.

Smatresk spent most of his time addressing his largest hurdle — concerns on the budget — while stressing the importance of UNLV as a top research university.

“First we are steadfast in our commitment to education,” Smatresk said in his opening remarks. “Secondly, I want to promise all of you that we will never break away from our [research mission.]”

Acknowledging that UNLV has been “cut to the bone and deeper,” Smatresk revealed that the 15.4 percent budget cuts could have been worse.

“In such a great university as this… it is my sincere hope that… we are here to engage in the most noble of all endeavors… education,” said UNLV Faculty Senate Chair John Filler, who also spoke at the event.

Combining the objectives to make UNLV a premier research school, while still focusing on newcomers, Smatresk stressed the importance of creative and innovative solutions that would ensure UNLV does not have to close its doors to incoming students.

“When we stop admitting students, we’re in trouble,” Smatresk said. “There’s no point adding students if we don’t have the [foundation] we need.”

Smatresk outlined possible solutions to some of the university’s problems, including the restoration of the senior adviser position, hiring administrative fellows and other “low-cost, high-return investments.”

Due to the fact that former vice president for Diversity and Inclusion Christine Clark recently resigned, Smatresk was adamant in declaring that he will be filling her position despite the controversy that has surrounded Clark’s departure and questions as to the utility of maintaining the position.

Explaining his vision for the students of UNLV, Smatresk stressed the start of programs that would help undergraduates achieve the fundamental skills they need to succeed in college and beyond.

Diagnosing skill gaps and treating these problems early in students’ academic careers is something Smatresk said he feels is vital to solidifying a strong academic community.

In the introductions to Smatresk’s speech, faculty echoed that sentiment.
“Without an educated populace, there is no hope that a community can achieve its goals,” Filler said.

Smatresk also touched on the idea of making dual enrollment easier so students can make the most of their time and increase transfer flow to the university.

The president went on to highlight the achievements of faculty and students and praised university staff for their dedication during hard times. He explained that as classes are cut and class sizes expand, professors and advisers are doing everything in their power to achieve the goals he outlined for the crowd.

“We’ve lost [more than] 100 faculty positions,” Smatresk said, addressing administrative reorganization. “These are serious cuts… at a time when admissions are going up.”

Smatresk broke down the budget cut into plain terms, explaining that non-academic endeavors took almost double the cuts of academic segments of the budget, losing $16.4 million. The academic budget counts for 75 percent of the overall budget whereas the non-academic sector is allocated 25 percent of the funding.

Despite the higher tuition costs and cut in the budget, Smatresk and Filler’s visualization of UNLV as a research school is an attempt to make UNLV the top research engine of the region.

Smatresk said he hopes students will come to see the opportunities UNLV brings, despite enrolling in a time of economic downfall.

“UNLV should focus on graduate education and high value degrees that will help [this] region move forward,” Smatresk said.

Being careful not to undermine undergraduate students, Smatresk called specific attention to these students, acknowledging what he believes is their great importance to the university.

As Smatresk and journeys further into his tenure as president, his contributions will ultimately have a much farther reach than the roads of Tropicana and Maryland Parkway, according to Filler.

“UNLV,” Filler said, “belongs to Nevada and to the greater Las Vegas.

Interim athletic director ready for challenges

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