The Connecticut State University System could save $6-million by shutting down its central office, and should look for savings of at least $3-million by reducing the office by half, says a report by a committee appointed by Gov. M. Jodi Rell, according to The Hartford Courant. The governor, who leaves office next month, has questioned the system’s administrative costs before. The system’s board scaled back raises for the chancellor and four campus leaders last summer after she criticized the increases. A university spokesman dismissed the new report as “stunningly incomplete, inaccurate, and incorrect.”
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2 Responses to Panel Appointed by Departing Governor Suggests Major Cutbacks for Connecticut State U. System
jffoster - December 15, 2010 at 7:28 am
This passage is from the Hartford Courant article:
“A statement from Bernard Kavaler, spokesman for the university system – which includes Southern, Central, Western, and Eastern state universities — said the task force’s report is “stunningly incomplete, inaccurate and incorrect. It does a disservice to the universities, their students, faculty, staff, and alumni.”
Have they considered whether a system in a state roughly the size of a postage stamp needs four state universities? And this doesnt even include the U of Connecticut, if I reading it correctly am.
physguy - December 15, 2010 at 9:21 am
In my view centralized state “systems” of higher education generally weaken a state’s public universities, the SUNY system being the prime example. Although state systems are typically justified as increasing efficiency, improving coordination, and eliminating wasteful duplication, one is hard pressed to point to any state where this has actually happened. On the contrary, state systems invite political interference, create a leveling effect that encourages mediocrity, encumber campuses with costly and unneded procedures, and burden them with regulations that hampeer creativity and innovation. It doesn’t surprise me that the Connecticut system spokesman would complain about the task force report, but I suspect if you asked the university presidents in Connecticut for their opinion, you’d get a far different response.