The Assembly of University Professors filled the Chemistry Auditorium last night to address the budget crisis. The event marked the first time the Assembly has convened since 1992, during the last budget crisis.
The Assembly passed its first resolution in support of a tuition increase and tabled the second proposed resolution that the Board of Visitors consider suspension of funds and construction of the new basketball arena.
Although organizers intended the meeting to be a forum for University faculty to voice their concerns, the Assembly was open to the entire University community, and the audience of several hundred included administrative officials.
Politics Dept. Chairman Robert Fatton, who organized the event with Faculty Senate Chairman Michael J. Smith, said the College is gravely suffering from a lack of state funding.
The budget cuts are "a serious malaise in our ranks," Fatton said. "We are dangerously close to sinking into mediocrity. We need to know there are serious strategies to extricate ourselves from our current predicament."
Fatton expressed his gratitude to the Board for the recent tuition surcharge but criticized the Board for its support of a $128 million proposed basketball arena.
"It is difficult to understand why we would want to build an arena seating more than 15,000 when last season average attendance was under 8,000" in University Hall, Fatton said. "Not surprisingly, the Building and Grounds Committee now intends to review plans to reduce the visibility of empty seats in the arena. The cost for this magical technology could run as high as an additional $750,000. In other words, the University may spend millions to construct an unnecessarily large arena and then hundreds of thousands more to make it look less empty."
The auditorium applauded the remark.
Media Studies Chairwoman Johanna Drucker followed, describing herself as "the voice of a relative newcomer," who came to the University four years ago to start the media studies program.
"When I was hired to work here, it was like I'd gotten a phone call from paradise," she said. But now, she said, her position as well as the rest of the University has sobered significantly.
"Low morale, like fatigue, has a devastating cumulative effect," she said. "Our situation isn't just 'something that will pass,' a toothache to be borne until it's over. Life doesn't just return to 'normal.'"
Smith said the current tuition is "below-market and below-cost," and called on the faculty to "start making a case out there in the polity that the University is worth the money."
English Prof. Jahan Ramazani said the three main sources of funding to alleviate the budget cuts are private support, tax dollars and an increase in tuition. Because University President John T. Casteen III has been successful in attracting donations, and because state funding has been severely cut, Ramazani said a tuition increase "is the only reasonable other place to go."
The second resolution called for the Board to consider suspending fundraising and construction of the proposed basketball arena until "the University's academic needs have been adequately met."
In response, Casteen spoke about the delayed history of the construction, the donors supporting it and the multiple-purpose use of the building. He cautioned the Assembly against opposing the number of donors who give to the program.
"I have a concern in my gut of breaking the faith of coaches, alumni and others," he said.
In addition, Environmental Sciences Prof. Robert Davis and others added that it might have a negative public impression.
Because of the opposition from Casteen and some faculty members, the second resolution was tabled shortly after 9 p.m.
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