Assignment #1: Cutting budgets
Due: Wednesday, September 14
Much of the reading for this week focuses broadly on "productivity." Are colleges efficient in the sense of producing their output a minimum cost? Some authors have argued very strongly that they are not, and that this is why tuition has been rising rapidly in real terms for decades.
For this assignment, you are the president of Reed College and have been charged by the Board of Trustees with cutting costs in order to moderate tuition increases and increase financial aid in response to the economic downturn. Most of Reed's costs are personnel costs, so it comes down to cutting positions from the faculty and staff. The numbers wonks have calculated that the necessary budget cuts will require a reduction of 8 staff positions and 5 faculty positions relative to 2010-11. Although it is possible that these positions could be recovered someday, you should think of them as permanent cuts because the Board anticipates that tuition hikes will need to be moderate in the future as the academic market becomes more competitive. Because this is a situation of financial exigency, you need not worry about whether faculty have tenure or not; make the cuts where productive efficiency suggests they will hurt the least.
Your assignment is to decide which departments (both academic and administrative) get the cuts (and how many are cut in each department), and to justify these cuts. You should submit your assignment by Wednesday 6pm in the form of a one-page email attachment (.doc or .pdf) containing a list with justifications. In Thursday's class, students will be asked to present and defend their decisions.
Information on the distribution of faculty, student units, and thesis loads are available on the Institutional Research Web site. There is a wealth of information there both current and historical. If you want a number that you cannot find, explore the site and, if you still cannot find it, email Jon. (Some parts of the IR site are only available on the campus network, not from off campus.) There is also spreadsheet online showing the change in staff positions (as listed in the Reed phone directory) between 1988 and 2011. (Your staff cuts should assume a starting point of the 2010-11 positions listed in this spreadsheet.)