October 2009 Archives

This past week, staff at the IHL (college board) distributed spreadsheets of projected budgets for the eight universities comprising the system.  Shockingly, the spreadsheet shows USM with a projected budget of just $156 million (and change) for the fiscal year 2011-2012 - a whopping contraction in the neighborhood of $25 million from where we started out the current 2009-2010 year. 

Even assuming that the recent painful process of APG-driven budget reduction nets $10 million+ for the next fiscal year, the IHL projection suggests that we still have another $14 million+ to go for the year following. 

Should there be even a slight shred of doubt in anyone's mind, let's be clear - cuts of this magnitude are massive, completely overwhelming the usual euphemisms of "trimming," "belt-tightening," etc.  It's hard even to imagine what a USM that is $25 million "lighter" will look like.

We're past pain.  Get ready for trauma.

A public opinion consensus seems to be building that Mississippi higher education must conform - rapidly -  to "a new fiscal paradigm" (the term used in a recent Clarion-Ledger editorial).  What's included in the so-called new paradigm? 

First, of course, much less money for higher ed - probably 20% or more less.  Always a desperately poor state, Mississippi is getting poorer, and, it would appear, simply can no longer afford all the education it has on a long-term basis. 

Second, dramatic reduction in the number of "duplicated" programs across the state.  Easy targets for reduction might be graduate programs - especially relatively high-cost doctoral programs - with small numbers of students.

Third, greater alignment of degree production with demonstrated workforce needs, with, presumably, shrinkage (if not outright elimination) of degree programs for whose graduates there is low job market demand. 

It's hard to argue with the logic that a cash-strapped state system must reduce to live within its means, and, to the greatest extent possible, streamline for the best "fit" with state social and economic needs.  Not at all clear at this point, however, is how we get from here to there, from our present desperate financial pickle to the new fiscal paradigm that promises a sustainable future.

      Along with other Southern Miss deans, I had the chance to speak with Hank Bounds last Wednesday morning.  It was a productive exchange, I think.  Anyone who attended convocation got at least the broad strokes of the commissioner's doom-and-gloom message.  Unrelenting shortfalls in state revenues certainly means that there's significant downsizing ahead for the entire university system.  And while it's expected that the economic picture will eventually brighten, we're likely looking at four years or more of sharply reduced revenues - for all practical purposes, a "permanent" reduction.  At once, Bounds indicated that he is decidedly not in favor of a slash-and-burn, do-anything-necessary-to-get-to-the-bottom-line approach to program reduction.  He emphasized the need for Mississippi's system of higher education to come out of the contraction smaller, but strong, positioned for the future and capable of addressing the state's priority needs.

      As dean of the College of Health, I confess to a somewhat biased perspective.  Yet in considering priority needs of our state, perhaps the most health-compromised in the nation, who can deny the centrality of health?  In my view, Mississippi's university system should lead in at least three health-related areas:

·         Professional workforce provision (essential to sustaining and enhancing the health services infrastructure, and pivotal to social and economic development);

·         Applied research and intervention (especially pertaining to countering the chronic diseases ravaging our state and threatening our future);

·         Data collection and analysis for policy and planning (seasoned health administrators - such as Bill Oliver of Forrest General Hospital and Gary Marchand of Gulfport Memorial Hospital - inform me that poor and incomplete data constitute an inefficient drag on health delivery and on effective services and workforce planning).

      As the IHL and the commissioner look to reduce "program duplication" in the higher ed system, we all worry about a bloody scramble among the universities to claim what's "theirs."  But health education and research are not matters of "territory."  Clearly, there is room - and need - for integration among the state's educational systems, and for collaboration among educational institutions, as well as between these institutions and the other public agencies responsible for public welfare.  There are opportunities both for greater efficiency and for real growth and expansion of capacity.