University of Alberta dean of arts Lesley Cormack. (Photo by Dan McKechnie/The Gateway)

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EDMONTON (CUP) — Despite cutting three vacant faculty positions for a savings of $500,000, the University of Alberta's Faculty of Arts is still planning to eliminate a total of 15 support staff positions.

A $1.5 million deficit caused by a faculty-wide two per cent budget cut last April has left the faculty scrambling to find savings, leading to an initiative termed the Administrative Process Review Project (AdPReP).

Through AdPReP, the faculty has found another $1 million in savings by eliminating seven tenured faculty positions from professors who have accepted retirement packages, which will take effect July 1. Those savings will go towards the next faculty-wide two per cent budget cut that will eliminate another $1.5 million from the arts budget on April 1.

In addition, eight support staff have voluntarily left their jobs, leaving another seven support staff positions to cut before the end of February.

Savings for next year’s budget cut will not be found by eliminating more non-academic and support staff, dean of arts Lesley Cormack said.

“My hope is that next year’s cut, we can take with a combination of better management of our endowments, being able to use them a little more creatively, fundraising, and the closing of those [faculty] positions,” Cormack said.

In addition, the faculty will be offering a voluntary severance plan for both non-academic and academic staff, as well as a declaration of interest for those interested in reducing their full-time position to part-time.

Although she acknowledged the situation was less than ideal, Cormack said that eliminating faculty positions was ultimately the best scenario.

“The bad news about closing positions as people retire is that it’s not done strategically. That’s definitely the downside,” Cormack said.

“It’s actually my hope that we will be able to mitigate a little bit, because if we have a number of people retiring, we don’t need to close all of those positions, which I think is a possibility.”

However, English professor Carolyn Sale said this is the exactly the wrong moment to be eliminating faculty positions from the arts.

“I feel pretty strongly that we should not be closing faculty lines and that this is not the solution,” Sale said. “Of course, they’ve moved towards it precisely because it sounds better to the public. These professors were already retiring, so we’re not affecting individuals directly. It’s going to go over a lot better than what we were hearing in the fall.”

Similarly, a support staff member in the arts faculty who asked to remain anonymous said the alternative solutions are welcome news, but have ultimately been implemented too late in the process.

“It’s unfortunate that it comes too late for some of our admin staff who have declined to wait for the axe to fall and found employment elsewhere ... Had this route been taken at the outset, a lot of stress and heartache could have been avoided.”

But Cormack said there’s no way to have an efficient process when you’re dealing with positions that have developed over time.

“It’s a very complicated thing to try and get at what those positions are and what’s needed,” Cormack said. “I think that one could have imagined a much longer process ... but that would have been much less efficient and probably would have taken several years.”

Cormack also raised the issue of whether the budget cuts are diminishing the quality of education for students in the arts faculty.

“Of course, anytime you take resources and people out of the system, of course it has consequences for those things. I think it would be foolish to say it does not,” Cormack told an audience at a forum last week.

Cormack’s stance differed from president Indira Samarasekera’s, who was quoted in the Edmonton Journal last week as saying the budget cuts were “modest” and would not have an impact on students.

“I don’t buy the argument that the two-per-cent cut is going to change their experience,” Samarasekera told the Journal’s editorial board. “We have not laid off profs — the number has increased over the last five or six years and now it’s constant and may go down slightly.”

Sale said Samarasekera lost a key opportunity to shed light on the consequences of budget deficits at the U of A.

“It makes us wonder what has she been saying on our behalf? If she loses such an opportunity with the Edmonton Journal, what has been going on behind closed doors?” Sale asked.

Students’ Union President Rory Tighe also disagreed with Samarasekera’s claim, noting that students have a vested interest in the quality of their education.

“I think the budget cuts are affecting students. When support staff are laid off, that has a direct impact on students. When faculty are laid off, that has a direct impact on students. When there’s less programs, that has an effect on students,” Tighe said.

Cormack later told The Gateway she felt Samarasekera was in situation where she was concerned about the institution’s reputation.

“I don’t think [Samarasekera] was right that this is not going to affect quality, but I would also say we have a very high-quality institution. We need to be careful to not overstate the problems that we have in a way that could cause damage as well,” Cormack said.

Samarasekera responded to her comments in the Journal a few days later in a written statement by acknowledging the budget cuts have been “painful” for all faculties, while noting the administration is striving to minimize their impact.

“My point was that prior to the current fiscal squeeze, we were able to make major investments in the university that have significantly improved the teaching and learning environment — indeed the quality of the educational experience — at the U of A,” Samarasekera wrote.

“Yes, there are impacts if we must offer fewer sections of some courses or have a few more students in some classes. But there is no other post-secondary institution in Alberta and few in Canada that offer the rigorous, research-intensive, incredible education that our students are getting.”

Tighe also noted the importance of looking beyond the arts faculty in a time of budget crisis, as other faculties are sharing similar struggles. In the past 19 months, the faculty of science has eliminated 55 out of 600 faculty and administrative positions, including layoffs of non-academic staff.

“I think what’s happening in the faculty of arts is sad,” Tighe said. “I think, however, there are similar stories happening in a lot of other faculties. I think it’s important to tell the whole story, when we are talking about this, and not focus on any particular issue.”

Recommendations and implementation of the AdPReP’s final administrative structure are expected to continue until March 31.

Editor's note: this is an updated version of an earlier story.

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