Faculty and administrators voiced concern over the cost and effectiveness of implementing Provost Paul DeLuca Jr.’s proposal to restructure the graduate school at a town hall meeting Wednesday.
The cost of the plan to restructure — especially considering the addition of another vice chancellor’s salary — was a main point of concern for audience members.
Cognizant of the tight budget situation the university is currently facing, Jeremy Foltz, professor of agriculture and applied economics, said many faculty are worried adding resources and staff to the upper levels of institutional management will be unnecessarily costly and may not solve the problems occurring at lower levels of operation.
“At least from my point of view, this looks like the Cadillac plan, and all we can afford now is a Chevy,” Foltz said.
DeLuca said while there will obviously be some efficiencies that go along with the restructuring, there will inevitably be costs involved to both initially bring the university up to the basic performance level needed, as well as to further grow the enterprise.
He added that contrary to popular belief, this is by no means a “Cadillac plan.”
Furthermore, DeLuca said the cost of doing nothing has been increasing incrementally, referencing an extra $2 million per year investment that had to be made just this week to bring the environmental health and safety operation up to threshold level.
Others voiced concern that taking a top-down approach to the needed restructuring would not necessarily fix the problems at hand.
Grant management has been an ongoing problem for years, according to Donna Cole, research program manager for the Waisman Center, a mental health research group at UW. She added she is skeptical that the addition of a vice chancellor position would adequately address it.
With only one substantial plan in place, Foltz was similarly concerned with the lack of options being presented for discussion.
“If you would really like a dialogue to answer this question on how best we could organize this, it would be great if we could see multiple ideas and particularly if we could see what the budget implications of these are,” Foltz said.
DeLuca responded he “had to start somewhere,” adding he has heard a number of suggestions for other possible restructuring strategies but has yet to see a proposal for what those suggestions might look like.
“Rather than me invent 10 different possibilities, I propose you invent at least one,” DeLuca said.
Jeanette Roberts, dean of the School of Pharmacy, said as someone who has thought about this problem and who has been personally involved with compliance, safety and other issues at stake in the proposal, she rarely gets anywhere far from the proposal DeLuca has put forth when she has entertained alternatives.
Due to concerns and questions from faculty and staff, DeLuca said he has dramatically slowed down the timeline for implementation of the plan to restructure the school.
“I assumed that this would not be an issue of the magnitude that I’ve encountered, but I do not have heartache about that,” DeLuca said. “I’m prepared to spend as much time as needed to adequately address all the elements and conversations that are required.”
