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[derosa]

...just interested in your stories....

Us:  Small, private, religious affiliation, tuition driven

Impact:  Hiring freeze, spending freeze, fewer sections, higher caps...a real scramble around here for us not to finish the budget year in the red.

[octoprof]

We've lost one half of our sections taught by adjuncts and part-time faculty for Spring term.  Therefore, my intro level course now has 60 enrolled.  We are not hiring, and, in fact, a few folks have been laid off.  We have virtually no travel money and no paper towels in the rest rooms.  The thermostats have been set several degrees lower than is comfortable for winter.

[dundee]

Our travel budget has been axed.

[neutralname]

I think our school enrollments are up, and our dept has experienced no changes due to the economy.  Maybe it is easier to find adjuncts now. 

We are a private school, although we rely on state money for some programs to help students who can't afford college on their own.  That may impact us in the next academic year with state budget cutbacks, but not yet.  That would not affect our dept much.

[balancing_act]

One department has been cut and another funded by a smaller sister school. Travel budgets are tighter than ever. One department is being threatened to have its graduate program cut, but probably not likely.

It's colder in the winter, and will be warmer in the spring/summer months because of more conservative thermostat usages. Departments are encouraged to use email and Blackboard rather than massive printing.

No open positions are being replaced; no new hires.

But, I'm a grad student and I still have funding. So far.

[octoprof]

I forgot to add that we've already taken a greater than 10% budget cut in the current year.

Enrollments are up, funds are down.

[anthroid]

Regional state u.  Cut early in the year and now just cut again for a total of 11-12%; there will likely be more cuts in the spring.  We have a hiring freeze for the moment, though I suspect some positions will be unfrozen in January and we chairs have been told to expect to cut operational budgets a bit.  However, being clever, I've taken some money we receive from the state for a particular kind of program in which we are active participants and I've put that money in a separate budget number.  This specific program money is not allowed to be cut by anyone.  Since I only recently was provided with this budget number, I took enough money out of the operational budget to account for the last 3 years (the period in which we have received this money) and put it in the uncuttable budget.

Heh heh heh.  More travel for us!

[choirguy]

Derosa - do we work at the same place? Your description sounds awfully familiar.

[jackalope]

Hiring freeze and a travel ban. It might get much worse though--the state has asked us to prepare budgets for next year with 5%, 10% 15% and 20% cuts. If it really hits 15% they will let me go. But I think they are bluffing.

[glowdart]

Enrollment caps are being enforced.  Students are transferring in droves. 

Beyond that, I'm expecting it to hit the fan over winter break so that the faculty are not around to witness the bloodshed or to protest the new policy changes. 

[octoprof]

Hiring freeze and a travel ban. It might get much worse though--the state has asked us to prepare budgets for next year with 5%, 10% 15% and 20% cuts. If it really hits 15% they will let me go. But I think they are bluffing.

That's what we had to do last year, jackalope. The cuts fell at 11%-ish.  More expected this year, though.

[csguy]

Smallish private university. No new positions (I believe existing searches are continuing). Soft budget freeze (i.e. "Please don't spend money" memo).

Admissions numbers are looking good (though it's too early to say definitively).

[sibyl]

I feel pretty fortunate.

We cut operational budgets, largely because of an expected decline in giving (we finished a campaign not long ago), a sharp increase in financial aid awards (prior to the downturn, so demand will probably go up), and a decline in graduate enrollment.  Hiring and salaries are holding up so far.  No one yet knows the impact of the economy on enrollments.  We draw about 50% of our income from tuition, but that will probably rise somewhat next year because of the endowment situation.  The real wild card, I think, will be financial aid.

[systeme_d_]

State U here.

University-wide hard hiring freeze (with the exception of three faculty positions that have been allowed to continue because of dire need).

10% definite operational budget cuts at departmental levels.  We also must prepare budgets with 15% and 20% cuts, to be evaluated and perhaps implemented next year.

Substantially raised caps on typically high-enrollment classes, in some case doubling enrollment.

Cancelled classes with low enrollments.  Upper level seminars are hard hit.

We will hear in late January whether we will be able to re-hire some or all of our VAPs and adjuncts for 2009-10.

[cgfunmathguy]

We're a CC transitioning to a state college, and the state board just issued another round of budget cuts. At the beginning of the year, we cut most of the travel and decided not to fill open staff positions. Now, we are charging students a "one-time" fee, and cutting the employer's contribution to health-care. The board has announced that faculty raises will still occur in January, however. The K12 teachers and the state system faculty (and college staffs) are the ONLY state employees getting their raises this year; everyone else working for the state has had their pay frozen. I believe this is only due to signed contracts, and we have been told by the COO for the state system to expect freezes in pay next year and that our pay may revert to this year's numbers in the new fiscal year.