Budget Talks Continue around Longwood
Corey Morris
Issue date: 11/4/09 Section: News
To put things lightly, Longwood University is in a pickle. Longwood needs to make up for a total 25 percent budget cut. Prior to academic year 2009-10, Longwood was hit with a 10 percent cut. Another slash amounting to 15 percent came from an order by Governor Timothy Kaine in September. Currently, students are not feeling direct implications of such cuts thanks to stimulus money from the government amounting to $3.1 million. However, after time, such funds will dry up and that is what Dr. Brian Bates, Chair of Sociology, Anthropology and Criminal Justice Studies, is trying to fix.
Bates's resolution calls for a "strategy where tuition increases in FY2011 be made cost-neutral to students through a reduction in the athletic component of the Comprehensive Fee, and that other components of the Comprehensive Fee remain level-funded…" The Academic Affairs Committee (ACC) passed his resolution during their meeting on Oct. 27. Bates said that the athletic fee is the single largest in the Comprehensive Fee and has noticed the largest amount of growth in the past decade. Such a strategy does not call for a deduction in the University's Division I status, however, some faculty see that as a viable option. Dr. Wayne McWee, Provost & Vice President for Academic Affairs, and Bates both agree athletics is largely a visibility issue.
"When I travel throughout the country, I am a walking billboard for Longwood. You would be amazed how many people come up to me in the airport and say 'I saw you all play,'" said McWee. How to preserve the visibility issue without losing touch with athletics is a very important question to be considered, said McWee. He fears that a reduction in the athletic component will be a negative effect on athletics. "What have we just said to our athletes who are working so hard to represent you? If we stay Division I, but reduce the budget too significantly, we would have a hard time recruiting."
Bates argues, however, Longwood needs to rediscover the core mission of the institution. "In tough budgetary times, you need to …maintain your core mission intact." To maintain Longwood's mission, requires revenue. Bates said he does not think that students should have to suffer a massive tuition increase to have the core mission preserved. "Some of the scenarios out there are looking at anywhere from a 24 percent to a 31 percent tuition increase over the next three years." The proposal passed by the AAC would, to some extent, make some of that increase cost-neutral to students. One of the proposed scenarios within the resolution calls for tuition to increase up to 30 percent, but students would only feel half of that increase, as cuts would come from the athletic component of the Comprehensive Fee.
Bates's resolution calls for a "strategy where tuition increases in FY2011 be made cost-neutral to students through a reduction in the athletic component of the Comprehensive Fee, and that other components of the Comprehensive Fee remain level-funded…" The Academic Affairs Committee (ACC) passed his resolution during their meeting on Oct. 27. Bates said that the athletic fee is the single largest in the Comprehensive Fee and has noticed the largest amount of growth in the past decade. Such a strategy does not call for a deduction in the University's Division I status, however, some faculty see that as a viable option. Dr. Wayne McWee, Provost & Vice President for Academic Affairs, and Bates both agree athletics is largely a visibility issue.
"When I travel throughout the country, I am a walking billboard for Longwood. You would be amazed how many people come up to me in the airport and say 'I saw you all play,'" said McWee. How to preserve the visibility issue without losing touch with athletics is a very important question to be considered, said McWee. He fears that a reduction in the athletic component will be a negative effect on athletics. "What have we just said to our athletes who are working so hard to represent you? If we stay Division I, but reduce the budget too significantly, we would have a hard time recruiting."
Bates argues, however, Longwood needs to rediscover the core mission of the institution. "In tough budgetary times, you need to …maintain your core mission intact." To maintain Longwood's mission, requires revenue. Bates said he does not think that students should have to suffer a massive tuition increase to have the core mission preserved. "Some of the scenarios out there are looking at anywhere from a 24 percent to a 31 percent tuition increase over the next three years." The proposal passed by the AAC would, to some extent, make some of that increase cost-neutral to students. One of the proposed scenarios within the resolution calls for tuition to increase up to 30 percent, but students would only feel half of that increase, as cuts would come from the athletic component of the Comprehensive Fee.
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