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[inthelab]

Private R1 medical school.

All searches canceled.

All staff hires frozen.

All admin, staff and faculty salaries frozen.

I a still trying to get an answer as to whether I will get a raise this year.  My salary is paid from grants, and I HAVE BUDGETED for raises.  If I don't get them, I will be seriously pissed off.

mm

That's a danger we face with grant funding: Unis holding onto grant money, although they have to spend to recover overhead. 
We have our budget meeting in less than 2 hours, wonder what we'll hear.

[temporaryname]

Likely for next year:  no travel, full-timers replaced with adjuncts, secretarial cuts, cuts to voice mail....

How do you cut voice mail?  I mean, it's part of the phone service to your phone line.

My office phone doesn't have voice mail any more--it was cut as a cost-saving measure. Voice mail comes standard with many phone plans, but apparently not at my university.

I wonder if anyone at your U has voice mail then.  Our plan includes it for everyone.

I had voice mail when I was hired. Chairs' offices and above (as well as departmental staff generally) still have it. Apparently, the vendor supplying our phone service charges for voice mail on a per-mailbox basis.

[much_metta]

T--social sciences
Regional University

At this point, little has been explicitly confirmed--we are waiting for more midyear budget reductions from the legislature as well as next year's budget--but so far our uni budget has been cut by about 10% and we anticipate another 10% cut in the next FY budget (at least!).  That said, we are looking at:

Special "fees" for students to cover appropriations shortfall.
Salary freezes for all employees until...?
Promotion raises may not be granted.
Supplies and equipment budgets, already insufficient, being reduced. 
Departmental secretarial support being halved. 
Travel and research funds being cut.
Temporary faculty will lose (some?) benefits.
All educational leaves have been cancelled until...?
Searches cancelled for all but "essential" admins (e.g., chairs, deans, etc.).  Future retirees will not be replaced--big problem as this will create serious curricular gaps.
Adjuncts getting dumped; tt faculty have to pick up extra classes to cover the load at no extra pay are being "reassigned" to more teaching duties.
Course caps massively hiked, regardless of pedagogical consequences.
Required major courses with small enrollments are being cut and faculty are being "reassigned" to teach large service courses (i.e., "money makers").  If this doesn't change very soon, one of our departmental programs will lose accreditation and we will have to reduce by half the number of career options our majors can pursue, including one very popular one for which our program is among the best in the country. 
Employees' share of health care premiums up 20% in addition to the rising cost of the premium.
Library that is already desperately underfunded has had to cut on-line access to many journals.  Unfortunately, that was our only access (no hard copies) and we lost back access to those journals.  So, if you want an article from any of the top journals in about two dozen fields, you have to go somewhere else to get it.  Did I mention we have a problem with mission creep, too?
Furloughs loom on the horizon; although admins will likely have to take more days, it looks like this could be anywhere from a 5-10% pay cut for faculty, minimum.  Expectations for faculty productivity are not likely to be similarly reduced, thus, we can't just get a McJob on our "furloughed" days, even if those jobs were still available.  Given that faculty here are already paid poorly relative to our peer institutions, that staff are severely underpaid, and that the local economy is extremely depressed (especially with housing foreclosures) this looks very, very, bad. 
Because we are a "right-to-work" state, most untenured faculty (60% of the corps of instruction) fear for their jobs, even the assistant profs who already have signed contracts for next year.  We also potentially face a major diversity problem if layoffs start, as nearly all of our tenured faculty are white males...

[flygurl]

VAP - Private, well-endowed SLAC
Humanities

* 2-year salary freeze for faculty and academic staff
* Travel money has been slashed = dean approved only
* Start-up funds for new hires way down this year
* Library budget cut by 13%
* Hiring freeze for visiting positions. TT lines may be approved, but doubtful
* Building projects frozen, except for those already underway
* Increasing number of students admitted for next year (probably only those who can pay the whole package)
* Morale down and paranoia up.

[systeme_d_]

Midwestern State U

*Near-complete hiring freeze (Only three of around fifty faculty searches were deemed "essential" and continued.  All other staff hiring was cancelled.)
*Termination of approximately 200 staff (no faculty)
*Non-renewal of many adjuncts
*Selective deferral of capital projects (some planned building construction postponed, for example)
*Selective deferral of noncritical maintenance and repair
*Higher caps on class size, cancellation of low-enrollment classes very, very strongly encouraged
*Reduction in availability of summer classes, and all classes now enrollment-contingent
*Elimination or reduction of some departments' graduate assistantship lines (one department had theirs increased, so this is being called "reallocation")

And more to come, I understand.

[orangejuls]

I was glad to see a couple across the board salary freezes.  At my old institution, there have been faculty & staff cuts, the usual, but the president received a huge raise, and pretty harsh criticism for it.  The general feeling has been that the u could have kept the money and redistributed it more evenly to people in those position who a) they relied on heavily, esp. staff that have been cut, and b) did the pres really need a huge raise?  The general opinion has been no.

That's what I hate to see the most...the "little" people getting hurt (who probably need the dough the most), while the administrators take raises, etc.  It's just irresponsible in this climate.

My mother, who is in health care management, just had her raise taken away--as have all upper-management at her institution.  She said it only seemed fair, and she'd rather lose that little extra, which was nice, but not a necessity, than tell three or four of her employees that they were being laid off in June.  We need to see a little more of that unselfishness.

[baumwelch]

Mid-level State University
pleasant college town
large but so-so sleepy department

1) Official Hiring Freeze
2) Optimistically (ridiculously) going ahead with various search functions anyway
3) May hire 1 out of 6 originally planned and (still) advertised
4) Most Teaching Assistantships and all discretionary spending at the department level canceled (admin still has a private jet for some reason)
5) More cuts to come during the summer
   a) some "less productive" units may close
   b) some single-year contracts may not be offered or renewed
   c) non-tenured instructors may be let go
   d) tuition may be raised
   e) unpaid furloughs across the board

All and all pretty grim

I'm sorry for all those on the job market this year

BaumWelch

[sabovision]

SLAC
Mid-western
Humanities
Zero $ for supplies, when the photo copy paper runs out, bring your own for the rest of the year.
2% COLA raise.
Cut down to $200 for faculty travel.
Cut Adjuncts, VAP for next year.
4-4 load next year if necessary.
Cut tenured faculty.  Program cuts get this done.
Cut staff.
Hang on.

 

[sibyl]

SLAC
Private
Middle States region
Humanities
Midyear rescission in operating budgets, about 6-8%, but no decline in salaries, 3.4% COLA for 09-10, and no hiring freeze.  (It was already planned to be a down year because of expected retirements in "fat" departments, but vacancies continue to be filled.)

More decisions will be made over the summer, once we know what admissions and financial aid will look like for Fall 2009.

[longfingers]

Good Regional Comprehensive College

Conference funds halved.
10% departmental budget cut
10-month contract for many staff (from 12-month)
Near freeze on tenure-track hires
Visiting position freeze (only for replacement hires not approved)
Salary freeze?!?
Building works halted (except on sports facilities!)
Increased course enrollment (with rumors of higher teaching load)

Not too horrible so far, but more is in the works...