J. Brown: Pitt’s budget is not in line with reality

Battle strategies for combating the recession have become so commonly advertised that it almost… Battle strategies for combating the recession have become so commonly advertised that it almost seems trendy. Cut this, get rid of that, freeze the budget for something or another. And Pitt seems to be no different. Since Pennsylvania decided to withhold $11.3 million in funding in December because of the state’s own budget crunch, no one has really had a choice but to buckle down around here. Chancellor Mark Nordenberg has taken up the task of making each educational department except health sciences reduce its budget for the next fiscal year. But I’m not so sure he’s doing it right. Pitt already isn’t a cheap school to attend. Because of the price of admission, we expect excellence in education here with intimate and enlightening classes. But as English depatment Chair David Bartholomae mentioned in an article last week, class sizes might be doubling in the name of consolidation. Some electives may be dropped and focus may be brought on only bare-bones essentials instead. Goodbye Blood and Empire, I guess. Pending what happens, it will probably impact the quality of our educations. As students, we’ll be paying for less. But will we be charged for less? Not likely. A Dec. 4, 2008, University Times article reported that Pitt’s trustees voted to raise faculty salaries 4 percent over the current $121,900 average during the next school year. Pitt’s Office of Institutional Research found this figure to be some $5,500 higher than the national median for public schools. Apparently Pitt is a nice place to work if you’re a professor. The trustees also decided to freeze their own salaries, ranging from the secretary’s salary of $190,000 to the dean of the School of Medicine’s at $702,000, with Nordenberg’s right in the middle at $460,000. This, at least, seems responsible. But under Nordenberg’s current contract, he’ll get a $75,000 bonus just for making it to June 2009. That’s right, his retention clause states that if he doesn’t find a better job in the meantime, he will earn enough in a bonus to pay for a new associate professor’s yearly salary. The last time the board froze the chancellor’s salary ‘mdash; 1996, following former Chancellor J. Dennis O’Connor’s resignation ‘mdash; it stood at $225,000. A Sept. 26, 1996, University Times article also said that Nordenberg would receive a personal car with a driver, a membership to the Duquesne Club and a semi-furnished house, among many other perks provided by the University. The chancellor also gets a membership to another club where he can ‘entertain prospective donors and business associates,’ no doubt a helping hand in seeking donations from generous benefactors. So without a doubt, Nordenberg deserves the extras from that perspective. But in a year when CEOs are undergoing endless scrutiny for their exploitation of luxuries while the common man is struggling to make ends meet, does it send a good message to us regular Joe Schmoes out there that he’s getting a bonus that’s larger than most Americans’ salaries? Like the many corporate executives who are taking voluntary pay cuts, some college presidents have stepped up as well. For instance, Stanford’s John L. Hennessey took a 10 percent reduction in pay for 2009. If reductions, rather than just stagnation, have to occur, the buck has to stop somewhere. And that somewhere should be at the top. Alas, every major university should have an obligation to its constituents. With the national unemployment rate at 7.6 percent and Goldman Sachs economist Jan Hatzius projecting a jump to 9 percent by the end of the year, paying for college will undoubtedly get tougher for some people and their potentially jobless parents. Yet somehow, no one has mentioned a thing about tuition costs for next year. The only certainty we have is that it’s never gone down. Because of this, attrition of good students is bound to occur. It’s an unnecessary side effect that comes from the school worrying too much about balance sheets and not enough about the general well-being of the student body. When we chose to come to Pitt, we were promised boundless opportunities and diversity. We were promised that as much effort as we gave, we’d get that much support back from the school and its faculty. And now that we’re in a crunch, it seems we’re limiting those possibilities in the itinerary. Instead of widespread publication of sensible ideas ‘mdash; like locking in diesel prices for our buses while it’s still cheap, revising routes or subsidizing increased costs with the massive funds our school has raised ‘mdash; we’re talking about cutting classes and department budgets at the expense of education. Since when is that smart thinking? E-mail Jacob at jeb110@pitt.edu.