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President Kirwan focused on achieving Academic Plan

Pursuit of excellence still goal despite dismal budget picture

COLUMBUS – A dismal state economic picture, including looming budget cuts, will not deter The Ohio State University from its pursuit of excellence through the Academic Plan, President William E. Kirwan said Thursday (10/11) during his third State of the University address to the campus.

“It defines our overarching goal – to be among the world’s truly great universities,” he said.

Kirwan outlined the tough choices the university must make as a result of several economic factors that will leave Ohio State with an expected $27 million shortfall throughout the institution, $19 million of which will be felt at the Columbus campus through a reduction in the state share of instruction.

“Last fall, the Board of Regents – with the Governor’s support – presented a ‘high hopes’ budget that would have significantly strengthened this university and higher education across Ohio,” Kirwan said. “But, as autumn turned to winter and spring, those high hopes were dashed by budget reductions that hit higher education especially hard. It was yet another example of the chronic under-funding of higher education that is putting our state at risk.”

Despite the budget crunch, Kirwan said the path to follow is one that redirects existing resources to match the continuing needs of the Academic Plan and to stop doing less-important tasks.

Kirwan set four priorities within Academic Plan initiatives on which the university will make progress in the coming year. They are improving the undergraduate student experience; a major biomedical research initiative; creating the Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity in the Americas; and improving faculty and staff compensation. Funding currently exists for the first three initiatives, while the compensation issue must be addressed in the face of more state budget cuts.

 “We cannot be an excellent university without excellent faculty,” he said. “We will not have excellent faculty if we do no provide compensation that is competitive with our benchmark peer institutions. The same is true for staff.”

The challenge, Kirwan said, is to address the state budget cuts while generating sufficient funds to support the Academic Plan, including a catch-up effort to make faculty and staff compensation more competitive versus Ohio State’s benchmark universities.

Therefore, Kirwan will call for a 10 percent cut in centrally funded initiatives to free some monies at the college and unit level. Also, he will ask academic support units to give up to 7 percent of next year’s budget and ask the colleges to reprogram up to 5 percent of their 2002-03 budgets.

In addition, the university will aggressively pursue increased revenue from sources other than the General Fund, including tuition, private fundraising, and government and industry grants.

“The result of these reprogramming actions will be a total of between $35 million and $45 million in fiscal 2003 to make our compensation goals a reality, to continue our progress in implementing the Academic Plan, and to respond to the mandated budget cut,” he said.

Despite being hit by “one unpleasant surprise after another,” the university has made significant progress in implementing the Academic Plan in its first year, Kirwan said.

 He pointed to this year’s freshman class as being the best prepared and most diverse in the Ohio State’s history. In addition, the school reached a milestone in fund-raising efforts by generating more than $200 million. Competitively funded research increased by almost 13 percent to an all-time high. And, three members of the current faculty were elected in the last 12 months into the National Academies.

Kirwan said the budget plan he has proposed requires making some tough decisions, but it is necessary.

“The budget plan I have presented today will be difficult to implement,” he said. “Making tough choices is hard work; there is a natural tendency to resist them. But, making touch choices strengthens and renews an organization, as it has done here already. And, we will emerge stronger and better as a result.”

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