June 11, 2009
Sadly but not unexpectedly the WSU department of Theatre and Dance is dead. Talk of a merger between WSU and UI departments is not going to happen.
From KELWTV:
The Washington State University Department of Theatre and Dance will not survive the budget ax by merging with the University of Idaho program.
WSU Provost and Executive Vice President Warwick Bayly said the department, which has 105 students and was listed for elimination in a preliminary budget last month, will be cut.
Bayly says the schools, with main campuses that sit about 10 miles apart, are discussing how they can help each other when offering the same courses.
But Bayly said the proposal to merge the two theatre and dance departments is a “non-starter.”
Even the Nuthouse might not be able to make this funny (oh they probably could).
May 29, 2009
WSU alum and high powered attorney Bill Marler has called WSU admins’ bluff and put up money for the common reading program. After days of attention from blogosphere The Omnivore’s Dilemma will be read by incoming freshmen after all. The administration had said the reason for not going through the program was budget concerns even though 4,000 books had already been purchased. It seemed very likely the real reason was they didn’t want to anger AG interests.
The story even hit the NYtimes:
This month administrators said budget cuts forced them to suspend this year’s program, but some faculty members and students were skeptical. They suspected that the decision had less to do with money than with pressure from the state’s powerful agribusiness interests. After all, they pointed out, the university had already purchased 4,000 copies of the book (published by Penguin Press), which links the agriculture industry to obesity, food poisoning and environmental damage.
So Mr. Marler, a personal-injury lawyer who has received a Distinguished Alumnus award and served on the university’s Board of Regents for six years, figured that he would find out if money was really the issue by offering to pay the program’s estimated $40,000 shortfall. The result is that the common reading is back on.
We have posted about Marler before here and his blog is here.
May 7, 2009
Don’t cross sociology faculty or they will come after you, well at least do some blogging. Shamus Rahman Khan an assistant professor Department of Sociology Columbia University sticks up for the Department of Community and Rural Sociology (CRS) at WSU. With the budget cuts there are a lot of positions getting cut at WSU, the whole CRS department is getting the ax along with 8 faculty members.
From the blog scatterplot:
Some of you have probably heard the news … In the face of a 10.5% budget cut, Washington State University announced on May 1 that it will eliminate the Department of Community and Rural Sociology (CRS) and terminate the employment of eight faculty members, including Don Dillman (Regents Professor), Emmett Fiske (Professor), Annabel Kirschner (Professor), Ray Jussaume (Professor and Chair), Jose Garcia-Pabon (Assistant Professor), William Gray (Professor), and myself (Assistant Professor). For most of us, employment will end in 12 months. Because Jose has been at the university for less than two years, his employment will end in 6 months. More information about our department can be found here.
In the words of my, Annabel Kirschner: “Our unit has 3 problems: extension support, size, and inaccurate information. President Floyd has decided to do vertical cuts to cope with the budget reduction to ‘preserve the quality of the university.’ Thus sciences and vet med are being cut by around 4-5%, and extension is being cut by 20% (much better than the 75% cut that was floated by the provost at one time). Many of us have extension appointments, and we are relatively small, so they’re hoping they can cut the department without too much of a problem.
The information that filtered up to the top was also inaccurate. It stated that our faculty brought in only $23,000 in grant money last year. Actually department faculty have averaged over $600,000 for the last 3 years but some of this gets credited to other units because of split appointments and other factors. Our teaching program was not recognized either. While we don’t have a major, we teach about 400 student credit hours per year in 4-6 different courses on a .8 teaching FTE. We also serve on numerous MA and PhD committees for students from different departments.”
