And
the
Board
said,
(Let
there
be
fright’
By MIKE PETRYNI
Of the Emerald
In the beginning there was the State
Board of Higher Education, and their word
was economic hard times.
Hard times begat a $6 million cut in state
system operations and a $1.5 million cut at
the University.
Thus, University President Robert Clark
begat a “state of financial exigency” and
that begat the Hearing Panel on Univer
sity Priorities (HPUP), charged with
“reviewing the University’s priorities” to
cut the budget.
HPUP begat a “collective nervous
breakdown” for the University.
So it was with the University’s budget
last year.
Because of financial exigency, the only
commandment was: Thou shalt not hold
anything sacred—graduate assistant
ships, secretaries, whole departments,
and, finally, tenure. No more tenure
during the financial crisis? The initial
cuts projected a loss of 62 full-time faculty
members and 8 classified personnel from
the University for the 1972-73 fiscal year.
Panic struck.
"What is this knocking at my door?” the
faculty asked. “It is only I,” the cold-wind
of-looking-for-another-job replied.
Students nodded, blinked, cast
demeanors of sympathy across their
faces, and felt relieved. A chance to trim
the jowliness from the University’s jaws.
For once, the University, of its own ac
cord, could get rid of an ineffective, en
trenched faculty, hiding from the world
behind their tenured walls.
But the gloom, in the end, descended on
the students too. They finally realized that
the best would be the first to go. Sixty-two
full-time faculty could possibly slice off all
the knockers and shakers this school had.
Then to top it all off, HPUP, ballooned to
fifteen members, including administration
members, faculty members, student
members, and decided to review priorities
behind closed doors.
Their argument was that the panel was
going to examine all priorities of the
University to first decide what were the
most important, what money would be
available for new programs and finally
those areas where the $1.5 million could
come from. Because much of the
discussion would be tentative and con
cerning personnel, and possibly later
reversed in subsequent discussions, the
panel did not feel it would be beneficial for
the press to be reporting what may be
premature deliberations. The press, the
panel contended, would only be causing
unneeded alarm throughout the depart
ments and personnel.
But wait a minute. Just what was the
task HPUP was to perform?
They were simply going to advise
President Clark on where the cuts could be
undertaken. The procedure was based on a
University of Minnesota plan of priority
review rather than just performing an
across-the-board, University-wide slash.
Priority review, it was believed, could best
eliminate undue harm to the most im
portant programs.
Essentially, the procedure was to have
each department file plans to cut more
than the necessary University-wide
percentage cut. The University’s cut was
to be 7 per cent for 1972-73 so each
department was asked to cut 12 per cent.
Departments were to tank their programs
in order of priority.
Then HPUP would review each
departmental plan, with a little give and
take around the 7 and 12 per cent locus
points, which would both come through
with the appropriate cut and at the same
time evaluate the priorities of programs
on a broader University-wide basis.
Now, back to the closed doors. The
Emerald and more than 15 other
newspapers in the state cried foul.
President Clark had said, in reply to how
much he thought the cut back would hurt
the quality of the University: “It is
inevitable that it hurts the University
when there is that much reduction in
staff—it cannot but affect us adversely in
quality.
“But it helps the University in this one
sense: we’ve been growing so rapidly for
so long that we haven’t really taken the
time out to appraise what we were doing.
For that, I think, it (the budget review)
can produce a very beneficial by
product.”
The newspapers said, basically: “If so,
then we should examine what we have
been doing at a public institution, in
public.”
The Salem Capital Journal contended
flatly that the setting of University
priorities was too important for secrecy.
And when HPUP persisted in maintaining
secrecy, even to the closing down of
deliberations if the press continued to
insist on attending the meetings, the
Emerald lamented: “It is sad to see this
sort of situation arise at an institution of
higher education; a place where free
inquiry and the search for truth are sup
posed to be the ultimate goal.”
But, when HPUP got going, truth was
not the ultimate goal; they just wanted to
cut $1.5 million from the University’s
budget.
And that they did—in a roundabout way.
After months of deliberations, HPUP
made its recommendations. The recom
mended cut was nearly $2 million instead
of $1.5 million. The projected 62 full-time
faculty cut somewhere in the smoke-filled
room had turned into 42.4 full-time faculty
positions and the projected cut of eight
classified personnel had gone up to 17.6
full-time positions in the recom
mendations. Classified personnel were not
represented on HPUP. In addition, 72 full
time positions out of the total 800 graduate
teaching fellows were cut.
(Continued on Page 7)
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