Faculty Council discusses budget, intellectual diversity
Published Oct. 26, 2007
Presenters at the fall Faculty Council general meeting said MU will face a tight budget in the coming years, and action needs to be taken soon. The council also discussed the university's efforts to ensure intellectual diversity.
"We're the first to admit that this is a difficult time on the campus," Chancellor Brady Deaton said. "But with your support — and it's something that I've pleaded for with deans and chairs and faculty — let's fight through this together."
Faculty Council Chairman Frank Schmidt also spoke about the need for faculty to work together to reclaim the image of the university.
"We have to reclaim our identity as the public knowledge reservoir and innovative engine for the state," Schmidt said.
He said one step toward achieving this would be the MU name restoration, a movement to change the name of MU from the University of Missouri-Columbia to the University of Missouri.
Schmidt said many of the university' s problems could be traced back to the state legislature, including provisions created through a hotly debated omnibus higher education bill.
"Missouri as a state under-funds public higher education," Schmidt said.
In his presentation, he cited different studies that ranked Missouri close to last among states when it came to funding on a per-capita or per-income basis.
MU Budget Director Tim Rooney said the omnibus higher education bill would provide some challenges to the financial situation, especially the tuition increase cap that was enacted in the bill.
Rooney said since the tuition at MU is more than the tuition charged by other higher education institutions in Missouri, MU cannot increase its tuition by any more than the U.S. Consumer Price Index.
"We're really the only ones who are constrained by Senate Bill 389, so our tuition for the next year will be limited to the national CPI" Rooney said.
Deaton said these constraints on finding funding would make it harder to raise faculty salaries.
"We're not happy that it has slid to this point," Deaton said.
Faculty members at the meeting voiced their concerns about the Web site created to report complaints about intellectual diversity, but Schmidt assured that all complaints would remain confidential.
He said the Web site was put into place without any input from MU.
"The general faculty was not consulted," he said. "The Faculty Council was not consulted."
Schmidt also explained why he believes the UM system Board of Curators decided to examine and act on this issue.
"There are probably two motivations in the Board of Curators," he said. "There are probably some curators who actually believe that we abuse our students despite all evidence to the contrary and lack of complaints as far as I know, and there are probably some others who thought that perhaps this was a good way to just simply head off the controversy."
Schmidt said there are ways that faculty can make a stand against these types of attacks as well.
"The way that this is combated is by not allowing ourselves to be divided," he said.