Chapter 4

President’s Council

Friday morning

Five-minutes of fresh air and I’ll be at my first meeting. I’m always energized by autumn leaves and sunshine; it was a day like this when I arrived on another campus as a freshman. I glanced to my right at the first building put on this land in the middle of the nineteenth century for a normal school, where high school graduates were trained to be teachers of primary and high school students. It was the only building here until more were added during the early twentieth century. Today this is a large, well-respected state university with thirty-five thousand students enrolled in hundreds of different undergraduate and master’s degree majors plus doctoral programs in the sciences, engineering, social sciences and humanities.

I admire those administrators and faculties who helped the normal school grow into a teacher’s college that became a major research university. The early librarians who built collections to support all teaching and research areas must have had vision. We continue their legacy through constant adaptation to needs as priorities shift.

In front of the Fine Arts building, bright, punchy posters advertise third-floor exhibitions. I glanced upward and saw a golden ball of light outside a third-floor window. Its unnatural brightness then changed shape and became a three-dimensional cross with no visible support.

Strange, I thought it must be a new exhibit. Or was the window reflecting sunlight in some odd way? No, this was the west side, in shade all morning. I wondered what sort of exhibit or project it could be and decided to check it out on my way back.

At the Administration building, the Council meeting room is full; everyone who’s supposed to be here is here; deans, department chairs, and the faculty senate president who represents a cross-section of the administration. The president’s secretary handed me an agenda. Near the bottom of the page there was a bold headline: ‘Budgetary Mandates.’

Uh-oh.

Like most Friday mornings, President’s Council seemed to go on and on, until a new dose of unpleasantness showed up in the budgetary part. I had to pay close attention to hear the real message between the lines because, as usual, much of it was cloaked in the elaborate language of academics. There are some ways academic politics and regular politics are alike. I think there are people in both groups who like to play mind games.

President Augustus Beck rambled through the state politics of the new situation, the splendid faith he has in the abilities of all administrators to deal with any kind of hardship that might happen to appear in their midst; and how he’s sure we can all figure out what to do and present our plans to the proper vice president next week. As soon as each plan is approved, it should be implemented within two weeks. We have three vice presidents; one for academic affairs, one for finance and one for student life. Actually, all those vice presidents are, in varying degrees, my bosses. Any one of them could be on my doorstep with a complaint at any time, their own or one brought by someone else. Sometimes it seems like there are a lot of bosses.

Budget pressures aren’t new, or even unexpected, but I began to feel a little tightness between my eyes. This could be just the first phase of a budget crisis. Things might escalate; it’s happened before. I hope we don’t get caught up in something bigger than any of us can deal with in kind and sensible ways. Oh well, no sense starting to worry before I have to.

“The state legislature has begun to question why university libraries need to be funded at all, now that a corporate conglomerate called Digital World has undertaken the digitization of all books.” The President paused and looked around to be sure everyone had heard.

I’d heard of Digital World. But I hadn’t heard anything about them trying to influence state governments with that kind of propaganda. They must be a bunch of weasels. I made a note to check on them, looked up and found the President staring directly at me and waiting for eye contact, as if to underscore what he’d just said.

I’d had that look from him before and knew it meant the library is in imminent danger. I maintained eye contact and nodded my head to let him know I’d heard and understood. I was relieved when he ended that negative report without asking for questions. We had each been challenged and would have to find a way through. It sounded like the threat from this big digital entity might be something worse than a regular budget cut.

My mind raced ahead, already engaged in trying to understand what Dr. Beck had really meant. Nothing is simple or clear cut, all our budgetary planning and preparation takes us only so far. When the university budget arrives at the state capitol, it’s in a whole different world. The state legislators will have final say about everything. Their support of higher education can vary for many different reasons; changes in annual state tax revenues, level of support from the federal government, the unpredictable shifting winds of political favor, disasters, competition with new projects. It’s like a big puzzle that’s different every year.

The governor and the legislators decide what will be supported when they approve the university’s annual budget. Some years they’re friendly; some years they’re adversarial. Not all, but many, are clueless when it comes to the general and complex needs of academic institutions.

“With the Internet do we really need libraries anyway?” I’d heard that question a few times; so I’m not sure we’ll even have a chance to defend the library. I know they want to see facts and figures, but education doesn’t run only by numbers. The educational process is so complicated that kind of question drives me crazy. It’s hard to explain to someone who might never set foot in an academic library how and why libraries are vital to the whole process.

More often than not, a majority of state legislators consider themselves to be conservative. They sometimes question needs of the library, but I didn’t think there were any who believed on principle that the Bible is the only book we need. The President’s words today made me realize he must always be on the lookout for all sorts of different opinions and potential threats to the budget.

I will have to dig into this Digital World thing. I drew a heavy line under my note and added an exclamation mark.

In fairness to state politicians, I actually think many funding problems go higher than the state level. Policy decisions at the federal level eventually impact the states. There’s no getting around it. If funding for a war increases, it may happen to be in concert with decreasing tax revenues. The money must be found somewhere. Some political decisions can have negative consequences for states and for taxpayers; and both must make the best of it they can.

As my attention came back to the meeting, the president thanked everyone for being here. After more than an hour of sitting and too much bad news, I was ready to leave that stuffy room.

I wonder if those early administrators and faculty ever got this kind of bad news. They were the builders, so maybe not. If there was bad news, they must have stayed on task; I’m inspired by their perseverance and intend to carry on the tradition.

 NEXT.....Chapter 5
Budget Cut