Expect to see fewer faces around Winston-Salem State University this fall.
Eleven full-time employees will have lost their jobs, the number of adjunct professors will be cut in half and the temporary employees the university has hired in the past to do small jobs around campus will be cut in the wake of a state budget reduction that could be more than 15 percent.
WSSU will also continue its freeze on hiring and travel and for purchases of noneducational supplies.
"Having worked in higher education for 20 years, this is the toughest I've seen," said Gerald Hunter, vice chancellor for finance and administration. "But it's tough for everyone."
The UNC System is looking to cut $414 million from the budgets of its 17 campuses in the system, including WSSU and the UNC School of the Arts. That would equate to a 15.6 percent cut if applied equally across all the schools.
But the General Assembly required that the cuts not be made across the board, so some campuses will have bigger cuts than others, based on such factors as the size of the school, the percentage of students eligible for federal Pell Grants, student retention and the availability of other sources of money.
The individual schools should know in two to three weeks just how much they'll have to cut, said Joni Worthington, a spokeswoman for the UNC System in Chapel Hill.
"These cuts are real, and they are going to hurt," Chancellor Donald Reaves told the board of trustees at its June meeting.
Reaves said the larger institutions will generally have larger cuts than the smaller ones. He said his best guess would be that WSSU's cut will end up around 12.5 percent.
In the current budget year, WSSU's total budget was $147 million, about half of which — $72 million — came from the state budget.
A tuition increase is not being considered, Reaves said. He said that would send the wrong message, that cuts can be offset on the backs of the tuition-paying students.
One of the cost-cutting steps will be to cut the amount spent on adjunct professors by half, from about $4 million to about $2 million, Hunter said. Adjunct professors are people employed primarily in other professions who teach classes in their areas of expertise.
By reducing the number of adjunct professors, the university won't be able to offer as many classes, and some of the coursework will have to be passed on to full-time professors, which will cut into their ability to do work outside the classroom such as research and student advising, Hunter said.
"The faculty will take on additional teaching roles, which changes the environment significantly," Hunter said.
The university is also eliminating 100 positions, including 85 positions that are already vacant. Of the people remaining in the other 15 positions, four have found other positions at the university. That means 11 people will ultimately lose their jobs as a result of the budget cuts, Hunter said.
The university is also looking at cutting the temporary employees. As of Wednesday, the university had 117 nonstudent temporary employees, Nancy Young, a university spokeswoman said.
This year, Reaves put together a resource allocation advisory committee of about 10 members — including faculty, staff and the president of the student government association — to help guide how those cuts will be made.
Michelle Cook, vice chancellor for university advancement, is one of the members.
She said the group has already held several meetings but won't make final recommendations until the university is told exactly how much will have to be cut.
"We're looking at every dollar we spend," she said.
In late 2009, the board of trustees approved a 38-page strategic plan designed to serve as a blueprint for the future of the university. Cook said that document has helped give the advisory committee some guidance.
"Because we have this plan, we are able to prioritize," she said. "If it's not in the plan, it is not a priority."
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