University officials keep budget cut suggestions from students
Central Michigan University’s interim President Kathy Wilbur said last week that discussing potential budget cuts opens a door for unnecessary fear.
However, that is exactly what happens when the university stays silent, much like it is now. Students and faculty are more suspicious when officials are tight-lipped concerning issues of great impact, and rightly so.
A budget forum will take place from 3 to 5 p.m. Tuesday in the Bovee University Center Auditorium. Officials have said the forum will address the university’s budget structure and the economic climate CMU faces.
While background information is certainly helpful, the campus community wants and deserves to hear more.
Sure, disclosing the specifics of budget cuts sent to Wilbur last week may not be prudent. But speaking in generalities to address over-arching ideas for cuts is not something beyond administrators’ reach.
The budget cuts will impact students the most, yet officials refuse to make light of anything they’re contemplating. There are more than enough ideas floating around, considering that students e-mailed suggestions and every department had to propose suggestions for 3, 6 and 9 percent budget cuts.
Why is the university treading this water and not including the campus community in the thought process? Are officials going to decide on cuts behind closed doors? No answers have surfaced yet among such pressing questions.
The shroud of secrecy administrators use for every major decision around campus is getting old. From the presidential search last year to the football coaching search this year, students are constantly ignored and belittled by high-impact decisions that involve thousands in tuition and taxpayer dollars.
The Board of Trustees runs CMU like a business, not a place of higher education. In the end, we are all in this struggle together. Whatever cuts are decided upon by the university’s administration are decisions we all must learn to live with.
The administrators are not the ones who will be sitting in classrooms or learning to make less with more when it comes to lab experiments or projects. At the end of the day, when the trustees head home, we are the ones at this campus on a daily basis.
At this point, budget suggestions are merely speculation. But no matter how far they are from being set in stone, new ideas from the campus community could only offer broader perspective for the battle ahead.
CMU should generalize some of the suggestions and get students’ reaction. Take after Western Michigan University and send out an e-mail of what the budget situation is and some of the proposed solutions.
Error in Friday's editorial
The Central Michigan Life staff made an editing error when writing Friday’s editorial, “Vacant trustee.” It should have said Central Michigan University Trustee Gail Torreano missed her second of four Board meetings.
Although our stance in the editorial remains the same, we apologize for the error and will continue to strive for 100 percent accuracy when writing the newspaper’s opinion.
