Spring Break
Memo to BOG: Please wait, think before chancellor decision
John Straayer
Issue date: 5/4/09 Section: Opinion
From all reports, Colorado State University's Board of Governors is on the brink of spending what will surely total a million dollars per year on more administration, located in Denver. It would take the form of a "chancellorship" with three "university" presidents reporting to the BOG through the new top guy or gal.
To many of us, a new enlarged "system/chancellorship" arrangement seemed like a questionable proposition from the outset. But now, with the state of Colorado and CSU facing draconian budgetary difficulties - difficulties which are likely to worsen for fiscal year 2010-11 as 2009-10 one-time budgetary patches expire - the layering on of more very expensive administration is all the more questionable.
Let me set forth the reasons why it is not in the best interest of this major state research university, or the state of Colorado, to have the BOG move forward at this time with such a major and expensive organizational change.
First, as I stated above, it is very costly.
A chancellor would command a higher salary than that of any of the university presidents and by the time a full-blown staff came on board and an expense budget was put in place, the annual price tag would surely exceed $1 million.
For that, up to a dozen bright, young professors could be added - professors who, unlike a new Denver-based administrator, would spend professional life with students, research and scholarly activities.
Second, with the university already suffering cuts in state support totaling tens of millions of dollars, and with the financial burden shifting ever more to students, their families and the accumulating student loan debt load, it could well take a toll in public opinion and public support of higher education.
Why, citizens and students alike might rightly ask, are we paying more for an instructional program for which state support is shrinking and simultaneously expanding administration? In tight times, don't organizations cut administration first so as to protect and nurture core functions?
To many of us, a new enlarged "system/chancellorship" arrangement seemed like a questionable proposition from the outset. But now, with the state of Colorado and CSU facing draconian budgetary difficulties - difficulties which are likely to worsen for fiscal year 2010-11 as 2009-10 one-time budgetary patches expire - the layering on of more very expensive administration is all the more questionable.
Let me set forth the reasons why it is not in the best interest of this major state research university, or the state of Colorado, to have the BOG move forward at this time with such a major and expensive organizational change.
First, as I stated above, it is very costly.
A chancellor would command a higher salary than that of any of the university presidents and by the time a full-blown staff came on board and an expense budget was put in place, the annual price tag would surely exceed $1 million.
For that, up to a dozen bright, young professors could be added - professors who, unlike a new Denver-based administrator, would spend professional life with students, research and scholarly activities.
Second, with the university already suffering cuts in state support totaling tens of millions of dollars, and with the financial burden shifting ever more to students, their families and the accumulating student loan debt load, it could well take a toll in public opinion and public support of higher education.
Why, citizens and students alike might rightly ask, are we paying more for an instructional program for which state support is shrinking and simultaneously expanding administration? In tight times, don't organizations cut administration first so as to protect and nurture core functions?
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