[Plantsci] Emailing: Budget, Decentralization, College Affordability Discussed at Sander Town Hall LQP at the University of Arizona
Donna-Rae Marquez
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Wed Feb 8 16:03:18 MST 2012
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Budget, Decentralization, College Affordability Discussed at Sander Town Hall
Shelley Shelton, University Communications
Feb. 8, 2012
Description: Image filename: 958-egsander_com.jpg
President Eugene G. Sander
University of Arizona President Eugene G. Sander opened his town hall Thursday by underscoring his opposition to legislation that would allow guns on campus.
Sander's office had sent a statement to the media <http://president.arizona.edu/memos_letters/statement-guns-campus-legislation-0> earlier in the day expressing Sander's concerns about the legislation, and the president took the first few minutes of the forum to reiterate the reasons he provided in the memo.
Senate Bill 1474 <http://azleg.gov/DocumentsForBill.asp?Bill_Number=SB1474&Session_ID=107> would allow people with state-issued concealed-weapons permits to carry those weapons on college and university campuses. Colleges could still maintain buildings as gun-free zones but would have to install, at their own expense, gun lockers for those buildings.
"The argument has been that it makes for a safer environment if you can protect yourself. I would argue that a university campus is about as safe as any place that I can think of. Although, let's face it, no place is 100 percent," he said.
He added that he himself is a gun owner and supporter of the Second Amendment <http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/second_amendment> but said this issue is a matter of appropriate place. He pointed out that thousands of school children visit the University every year.
"When you have an environment where there are weapons around, all you are doing is essentially asking for an accident," he said. He encouraged the audience members to contact their legislators to make their feelings known on the issue.
Vice President for External Relations Jaime Gutierrez <http://externalrelations.arizona.edu/vpoffice.cfm> facilitated the event, fielding questions from those in attendance and reading aloud from questions submitted in advance online.
In response to a question about the state budget, Sander said he's gradually feeling better about what the state is doing, although he didn't feel the governor’s budget had treated the UA fairly.
He talked a little bit about "disparity funding" – the Arizona Board of Regents' efforts to equalize how much money the three state universities receive per student – and said the UA should not get the same amount per student as Northern Arizona University and Arizona State University because the UA has a medical school <http://medicine.arizona.edu/> , college of agriculture <http://cals.arizona.edu/main/> and 127,000 acres in locations across the state, none of which the other schools have.
"So we worked pretty hard last summer … to come to some sort of equalization that would essentially make that a fair ground on which to play," Sander said. "And finally, after a lot of gnashing of teeth and trying to make sure that this was done in an equitable fashion, your president signed off on that as being about as fair as it's ever going to get."
The funding requests submitted in the fall represent the first year of a five-year phase-in plan to address the disparity.
Sander said he favors so-called "performance funding," in which the universities are funded based on their output and not on how many students they take in, but he had some caveats for that as well.
"One thing you want to be very, very, very careful about. And that is, in your zeal for output you don't diminish quality," he said. "I know how you increase the number of graduates from the University of Arizona. Absolutely. It's called barcode them, process them and shove them through the tube. On the other hand, it really doesn't do much good if you've got students who come out the other end and find themselves unable to get positions with the top companies in the country."
He said it's important to monitor quality, not just quantity, as performance standards are set.
He called on Milton Castillo <http://businessaffairs.arizona.edu/staff.php> , senior vice president and chief financial officer for business affairs, to help with an answer to a question about decentralization on campus.
The person who submitted the question, via email, said it is hard to find central units on campus that can solve problems and wanted to know who decides which functions are and aren't centralized.
Castillo, who joined the University <http://lqp.arizona.edu/node/3459> a little more than a year ago, said he was "shocked" when he learned how decentralized some major functions are, including information technology and human resources.
He chalked it up to the campus culture and the fact that so many here at the UA prefer to do their own thing.
"We could get a lot of value from consolidation of some of these areas," Castillo said.
Sander said he's in favor of more centralization as long as it doesn't affect the mission of the University.
When he was dean of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences <http://cals.arizona.edu/main/> , he said, he protected his college's IT department zealously. But now that he works at a higher level, he added, he sees how much more efficient it would have been to change some of that.
Sander also was asked about the retirement incentive program <http://lqp.arizona.edu/node/3529> that was offered last spring.
A year ago, certain tenured faculty and appointed personnel with continuing status appointments were eligible to retire and receive a lump-sum payment equivalent to one year's salary after they received their final regular paycheck as a UA employee.
"The acceptance rate wasn’t quite what we expected it could be," Sander said.
Allison Vaillancourt <http://provost.arizona.edu/node/56> , vice president of human resources, chimed in to note that the goal had been participation by 30 percent of those eligible, but the actual numbers came out closer to 20 percent participation.
Sander said such plans cost money, and the University doesn't want people to assume they'll get a buyout if they stick around long enough.
"I don't think we have a retirement incentive plan in our future again, at least not in the short term," he said.
A student from the Associated Students of the University of Arizona <http://asua.arizona.edu/ASUASite/ASUA.html> asked about how the University plans to avoid continuing tuition increases.
Sander said the best way to cut expenses is to guarantee that students can graduate in four years.
That means certain core courses need to be taught whether or not their normal professors are on sabbatical, he said.
When he was a dean, "we were pretty hard-nosed about that," Sander said.
If that's not possible, then the college needs to find a way to allow substitute courses, he said.
He worries that when student debt is too high, it becomes harder for recent graduates to find an entry-level job that can cover the debt repayments.
Thursday's was the first of four town hall forums that Sander has planned for this semester. The second was scheduled for today in Phoenix. His next Tucson town hall <http://uanews.org/node/44596> is from noon to 1 p.m. March 21 in the Kiewit Auditorium of the Arizona Health Sciences Center. His final town hall <http://uanews.org/node/44597> will be noon to 1 p.m. April 11 in the Kiva auditorium of the Student Union Memorial Center.
Comments? Send them to lqp at email.arizona.edu. Emails must be sent from UA or UA Foundation accounts. Please include your full name and title.
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In This Issue:
·February 8, 2012
·Budget, Decentralization, College Affordability Discussed at Sander Town Hall <http://lqp.arizona.edu/node/4849>
·Faculty Opinion Considered by President Search Committee, Tolbert Says <http://lqp.arizona.edu/node/4847> <http://lqp.arizona.edu/node/4106>
·Faculty Member's Book Helps With Reshaping the Body by 'Rethinking' the Mind <http://lqp.arizona.edu/node/4844> <http://lqp.arizona.edu/node/4104>
·Faculty Senate Adopts Resolution Opposing Guns on Campus <http://lqp.arizona.edu/node/4842>
·University Seeks Feedback for Classroom Technology Upgrades <http://lqp.arizona.edu/node/4839>
·LQP Asks: Flowers or chocolate? <http://lqp.arizona.edu/node/4837>
·BIO5 Institute Funds Eight Collaborative Pilot Grants <http://lqp.arizona.edu/node/4835>
·Two Professors Receive National Recognition in Their Fields <http://lqp.arizona.edu/node/4830>
<http://uanews.org/calendar/day> Extracurricular
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·FEB. 11 | 3 p.m.
'Arizona 100: A Celebration' <http://uanews.org/node/44362>
·FEB. 12 | 5:30 p.m. <http://uanews.org/node/25660>
UApresents: Itzhak Perlman <http://uanews.org/node/39607>
·FEB. 14 | 7 p.m. <http://uanews.org/node/28400>
UA Science Lecture Series - 'Living Beyond 100: Repair, Regeneration and Replacement Revisited' <http://uanews.org/node/43959>
<http://lqp.arizona.edu/ed-classified> On The Market
·FREE RENT IN EXCHANGE FOR CHORES <http://lqp.arizona.edu/node/4781> | Busy psychologist/former UA Alzheimer researcher, volunteer naturalist, and bed-and-breakfast owner seeking energetic student or professional single or couple to do house and yard work and occasional pet care ...
<http://lqp.arizona.edu/popquiz> Pop Quiz
·The UA's first shuttle service was powered by:
a. A horse-drawn carriage
b. A 1946 Ford truck with a trailer that accommodated 12 passengers
c. A school bus purchased from Tucson High School in 1961
d. A 1988 custom van donated by a former UA president
Answer: a
The very earliest version of the CatTran was a horse-drawn carriage known as "University Hack Line," which gave rides daily between downtown and campus in 1893. The shuttle in its current incarnation began in 1988.
<http://lqp.arizona.edu/qt> The QT
·Quick Survey to Tell External Relations Your Communications Needs <http://lqp.arizona.edu/node/4787>
·Donate Your Old Glasses to the Lions Club <http://lqp.arizona.edu/node/4818>
·The Spring/Summer 2012 Issue of the UA Visitor Guide is Here <http://lqp.arizona.edu/node/4791>
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·Be a lifesaver. The Sarver Heart Center offers free training sessions <http://www.heart.arizona.edu/publiced/lifesaver.htm> in continuous-chest-compression CPR, which doesn’t require mouth-to-mouth breathing.
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