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Editorial: We don't need no stinkin' state
Facing fiscal uncertainty, UA should aggressively seek private funds
Issue date: 4/29/08 Section: Opinions
The $11 million cutback to the UA's budget announced last week by the Arizona Board of Regents wasn't a surprise for anyone. Arizona's economy has started to cool, and the state budget has been a fiscal disaster for months. With an already-stingy state Legislature facing a huge budget shortfall of its own, a measure of fiscal prudence is inevitable, and in the current climate it makes sense for the regents to prepare Arizona's universities to cut back.
But though the cuts were predictable, they won't be pleasant. This year's reduction can be ably absorbed, but shrinking budgets invariably mean faculty either lured away or asked to leave, fewer and larger classes for students and the loss of various other academic amenities. Preventing academic excellence from shrinking along with the budget is essential, and as state support for education starts to shy - a trend that will only worsen as legislators finally try to tackle Arizona's billion-dollar deficit - it's imperative that the UA looks beyond the state's coffers to come up with creative ways to generate cash.
Fortunately, they're already doing a pretty good job of it.
Although the public contribution to the UA's annual budget is significant, composing about 23 percent of the operating budget, private contributions are integral as well - and one of the most innovative means of private support is endowed professorships.
Nearly 70 UA professors already hold endowed chairs, in which a portion of their salary is drawn from interest-bearing private gifts. Endowments can supplement faculty salaries, or in some cases even pay them entirely. Either way, they reduce the UA's dependence on fleeting funding from the state and free up money to be allocated elsewhere. Even better, many of them ensure that important research and excellent courses have stable, consistent financial support.
Just this week, two retired Phoenix teachers left $2.5 million to the College of Medicine to fund a pair of new research chairs. This year, new endowments have also been established in dance, engineering, management and consumer sciences. More fortunately, the total value of UA endowments continues to rise, from $466 million in 2006 to $536 million this year.
But though the cuts were predictable, they won't be pleasant. This year's reduction can be ably absorbed, but shrinking budgets invariably mean faculty either lured away or asked to leave, fewer and larger classes for students and the loss of various other academic amenities. Preventing academic excellence from shrinking along with the budget is essential, and as state support for education starts to shy - a trend that will only worsen as legislators finally try to tackle Arizona's billion-dollar deficit - it's imperative that the UA looks beyond the state's coffers to come up with creative ways to generate cash.
Fortunately, they're already doing a pretty good job of it.
Although the public contribution to the UA's annual budget is significant, composing about 23 percent of the operating budget, private contributions are integral as well - and one of the most innovative means of private support is endowed professorships.
Nearly 70 UA professors already hold endowed chairs, in which a portion of their salary is drawn from interest-bearing private gifts. Endowments can supplement faculty salaries, or in some cases even pay them entirely. Either way, they reduce the UA's dependence on fleeting funding from the state and free up money to be allocated elsewhere. Even better, many of them ensure that important research and excellent courses have stable, consistent financial support.
Just this week, two retired Phoenix teachers left $2.5 million to the College of Medicine to fund a pair of new research chairs. This year, new endowments have also been established in dance, engineering, management and consumer sciences. More fortunately, the total value of UA endowments continues to rise, from $466 million in 2006 to $536 million this year.
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Viewing Comments 1 - 4 of 4
Marvin L Foushee
posted 4/29/08 @ 2:47 AM PST
A 2.5 million dollar endowment can generate 500,000-750,000 dollars a year in revenue toward research chairs. The current trend in higher education is to give 75 thousand dollars toward research chairs from this endowment and to keep 425 thousands dollars of the endowment's earnings in the Golden Dawn, Jerusalem endowment pot. (Continued…)
Marvin L Foushee
posted 4/29/08 @ 3:12 AM PST
http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/ng/ng_cons_sum_dcu_nus_m.htm
This is the consumption figures for natural gas in the United States on a monthly basis. (Continued…)
Reality Check for the Democrats
posted 4/29/08 @ 3:48 AM PST
Do you actually believe that George W Bush and his Army of Gestapo darkness would kill 3,000 people in New York City so that Barack Hussein Obama and Reverend Wright could bang their Zion-Ethiopia drums in the White House in 2009? If something doesn't give, it will break or Uncle Tom. (Continued…)
Reality Check for Reality Check Guy
posted 4/29/08 @ 11:22 AM PST
Most Democrats do not believe that Bush carried out the 9/11 attacks (after all they were successful), just like most Republicans don't believe that Obama is a muslim terrorist (although the douchebag I'm responding to apparently does). (Continued…)
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