(Editor's note: This is part of an ongoing series of articles examining how campus units are being affected by budget cutbacks.)
Faced with substantial budget cuts, the Division of Biological Sciences will make changes in faculty recruitment, institute class laboratory fees, review and revise recharge rates and implement cuts in operating budgets.
In meeting budget goals, the division will plan for both the short and long-term, said Dean Phyllis Wise. The division's priorities are to focus on areas of strength, preserve faculty positions and open searches, and avoid staff layoffs, she said. There have been no staff layoffs in the current year.
"We aim to be one of the top 10 biology programs in the country. Ultimately the economy will improve, and we have to protect our long-term future and enhance our ability to thrive," Wise said. "In spite of these cuts, our research and teaching programs are very strong. So I remain optimistic about our future."
Research grants awards to the division were up more than 40 percent in the past year, to $37 million. Wise has established a dean's incentive program to provide funds that enable faculty to pursue large-scale interdisciplinary research grants that can support staff and equipment costs.
"Our aim is to enable faculty to obtain preliminary data and foster collaborations to go after these big grants," Wise said. "While the success of the division's research programs is impressive and enhances its reputation, it also increases administrative costs that cannot be met directly from grants."
The division is planning for steady growth in student enrollment over the next few years, with numbers expected to jump when teaching facilities in the new Sciences Laboratory Building, now under construction, open in Winter 2005. The division currently has almost 5,000 undergraduates; biological sciences is the campus's single largest undergraduate major.
The division must implement a cut of $799,000 in its permanent budget, including a $680,000 cut in funding for Agricultural Experiment Station (AES) research. That amounts to 8 percent of the division's operating budget, excluding funds for "instruction and research (I&R)" faculty salaries. However, division staff advise that the real impact is a 11.5 percent cut in the budget when all faculty salaries (both I&R and AES funds) are excluded.
As a result, the division will permanently lose more than 20 percent of its full-time AES faculty positions. Most of the division's 135 faculty members receive a percentage of their salary from AES funds, typically 18 percent, for research aimed at improving food production and protecting natural resources. Virtually all current faculty who had a higher percentage of AES funding have agreed to receive a greater share of their salary from I&R funds, to reduce their AES commitment to 18 percent. Furthermore, new professors will not receive any AES salary funds. As with other faculty across the campus, faculty are being encouraged to include part of their salary on research grants.
In the near term, the division will focus its recruitments on partnering with campus-wide initiatives, such as genomics and neuroscience, where funds are already allocated. Most new faculty in the division bring new state-of-the-art research methodologies that benefit other faculty, Wise said. "These techniques carry needs for new equipment and significant startup costs but, on average, new faculty repay their startup costs through grant overhead within five to six years," she said.
Other challenges
The division also has a shortfall of $130,000 in instructional funds resulting from the high costs of teaching lab-intensive classes, Wise said. To help close that gap, the division has instituted fees for chemicals, glassware and other course materials, effective in the fall quarter. Wise noted that laboratory fees are routine in other science disciplines on campus.
To buffer the impact on students of this cost increase, the division has implemented fee waivers for students in need. Pell grant recipients are automatically exempt from the fees. Under new guidelines introduced by the division, the number of teaching assistants will be slightly reduced and redistributed more equitably across all sections.
The division has an accumulated deficit of $400,000 in recharge facilities. This reflects the increased needs of faculty for shared facilities that require continual updating of equipment, expensive service contracts and technical support, Wise said. The division has eleven recharge units for services such as greenhouses, imaging, electronics and animal care. Mindful of the need to remain accessible and recover costs of providing the services, recharge rates will be adjusted to put units onto a sound footing, said Executive Assistant Dean Donna Olsson.
The division faces other financial challenges and has taken several steps to implement a one-time cut in general funding of $333,000 in 2003-04. The Dean's office has cut operating costs by 10 percent, and sections and centers have made cuts of 4 to 6 percent. Equipment purchases have been cut back or delayed. Some vacant staff positions remain unfilled and a few staff volunteered to participate in the time-reduction program, START, although participation in this program has been limited due to the pressure of division workload, Olsson said. Further one-time cuts over the next two years are expected.
Consultation
The division engaged in an extensive consultation process while drawing up budget plans, Wise said. A series of five division-wide meetings with faculty and staff were held earlier to discuss the budget situation, attracting 50 to 200 participants at a time. Administrators also consulted with section chairs, center directors, faculty representatives and MSOs throughout the process, she said.
"One outcome of the meetings was that faculty agreed that staff positions needed to be protected," said Michael Dahmus, chair of the Section of Molecular and Cellular Biology (MCB).
As the largest section in the division, MCB faculty teach three popular majors (Genetics, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, and Cell Biology) totaling about 1,400 students. The section has been examining ways to trim teaching costs by developing Web pages to replace some of the handouts and streamlining some of the laboratory exercises, Dahmus said.
Budget considerations are now a major part of any decision, he said. "The budget is driving decision making a lot more than it used to and probably more than is healthy," Dahmus said.
Hopes to raise funds
The division has a major fund-raising effort under way, with a $10 million target for the "Opportunities for Distinction" initiative, including facilities in the Sciences Laboratory Building, and $8 million for the proposed neuroscience building. The division is also working with the campus to identify additional opportunities for the upcoming comprehensive campaign.
In addition to identifying potential opportunities and donors, the division has also begun an internal fund-raising drive, inviting faculty and staff to make pledges and donations. The aim is to demonstrate the commitment of the people within the division, Wise said.
Wise said she remains optimistic about the future.
"If we plan for the long-term and make our cuts strategically, we should come out of this transitional period of constraint ready to take advantage of future investments in important areas of biology," she said.