FAYETTEVILLE -- Newly released campus priorities for the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville will require funding to be collected in part from trimming budgets elsewhere, Chancellor Joseph Steinmetz told faculty members Wednesday.
Administrative units will have 1 percent cut from their budgets for each of the next three years, Steinmetz told UA's faculty senate.
"We're going to pull that forward into a fund that then is used on some of these priorities that have come out of this planning process," Steinmetz said, estimating that between $4 million and $6 million will then be available.
The broad-based tenets include "investing in faculty excellence" and "advancing student success," with boosts to faculty pay and student financial aid described by UA as ways to support "guiding priorities" announced Oct. 3. They resulted from what UA has described as a collaborative planning process, still ongoing, with participation from three committees, academic deans and students.
Steinmetz said the $1 billion fundraising effort, Campaign Arkansas, involves asking donors to contribute to advancing these priorities.
"People often ask, well, what are the goals of the capital campaign? It's those eight goals," Steinmetz said.
The other priorities are: "building a collaborative and innovative campus," "enhancing our research and discovery mission," "enriching campus diversity and inclusion," "promoting innovation in teaching and learning," "reaffirming our land-grant and flagship responsibilities" and "strengthening graduate education."
The administrative units, which Steinmetz did not name, have been informed of the cuts, he said.
Academic units and colleges within UA also will be expected to contribute, but not in the same way.
A campus memo to UA deans from Steinmetz said that while the 3 percent budget cut is taking place "across campus," the funds will "stay in your college/unit, but must be directed to initiatives that support our eight campus priorities."
Laura Jacobs, chief of staff for Steinmetz, clarified via a text message to the Democrat-Gazette that the athletics department "has a different model of how they will invest in campus priorities."
Jacobs described the 3 percent cuts affecting all UA "service units," which are not defined by UA to include athletics. For budget purposes, the athletics department is defined by UA as an auxiliary enterprise.
In an email, Jacobs stated that there are discussions between Steinmetz and UA's athletic director, Jeff Long, about "increased support from athletics from their revenues moving forward," and she added that athletics already provides about $3 million in support annually to the university.
Steinmetz has in the past praised the Razorback intercollegiate athletics program as "self-sufficient," requiring no subsidy from students or academic budgets to operate.
Speaking to faculty members, Steinmetz said work is ongoing to define some goals, such as increasing salaries to perhaps to the median level of compensation for all Southeastern Conference universities or maybe a different benchmark group.
He added that decisions will have to be made about how to distribute funds, noting concerns raised "about some of our very best faculty leaving to go elsewhere because of a lack of support."
Other issues include how to raise stipends paid to graduate students, he said.
"We're doing some calculations, what will be the cost over four or five years in a significant number of these areas. I don't have the figure for you, but I'd guess it's a fairly large number," Steinmetz said.
He also said the university will "continue to look, throughout the next three or four years, for other opportunities financially to back these priorities."
Metro on 10/13/2016