UC deficits put pressure on dean
With UC's biggest college $7M in red, 1st-year dean feels heat from faculty
May 12, 2013 7:50 PM



A&S Dean Ron Jackson / Provided/UC

Written by
Cliff Peale



A $7 million deficit at the University of Cincinnati’s largest college and a mini-mutiny against the dean have UC’s campus buzzing this spring.

The shortfall at the McMicken College of Arts & Sciences will take three or four years to recover. It’s the biggest chunk of a $12 million overall deficit from the dozen colleges UC operates on its main campus, some of it caused by the conversion to semesters last summer.

With A&S Dean Ron Jackson in his first year and the strain of offering classes for students in nearly every major, the college has been a focus. Two associate deans have resigned, calling Jackson unprepared. Department heads have appealed to UC’s top executives, urging an intervention.

So far, President Santa Ono and interim Provost Larry Johnson are supporting Jackson.

It’s a combination of the turf-laden infighting that’s flourished on university campuses for generations, fueled by the strain of needing to use stagnant resources to educate more and more students.

“People sometimes want simple answers,” Johnson said. “They say, ‘If we get rid of Dean Jackson, everything will be fine.’ Well, he didn’t cause the budget crisis. My goodness, he’s been there for 10 months. We’re not panicking.”

The operating deficits are yet another sign of the financial strains on universities that have some experts predicting a disruption in higher education. If the “college bubble” inflates too much, they say, it could affect not only students and families, but the broader economy as well.

At UC, Jackson said he’s implementing a plan to solve the deficit within four years. The plan includes more professional certification programs and online courses that generate tuition dollars. An early retirement incentive also could help reduce faculty costs, and different departments will share office and clerical services.

“There’s a serious problem with the budget,” Jackson said in an interview. “It does require that folks be patient as we engage in the plan we’ve laid out.”

The 42-year-old Jackson, a Greater Cincinnati native who earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in communication at UC, started as dean last summer earning $240,000 a year. He walked into a deficit. The 2012 summer term was shorter than usual because UC was converting to semesters.

“They’re going to make a whole lot of that up in the coming year,” Johnson said.

The college’s central place in UC’s undergraduate system also made it vulnerable. Beyond its 7,900 majors, it traditionally teaches more than 40 percent of all UC undergraduates, often with liberal arts classes required in other majors such as engineering and business.

When those programs sliced requirements for A&S courses such as physics, or those colleges starting teaching the classes themselves, A&S paid the price. “There had been curriculum creep, and other colleges are cutting back,” Johnson said. “A&S has been hurt by that, but we don’t see it as a major crisis.”

Is the first-year dean prepared for the job?

For some professors in Arts & Sciences, the problems go well beyond financial statements. They say Jackson is not up to the job. They applaud his public efforts to promote the college and his handling of conflict between departments, but also complain that he lacks vision.

Those complaints were raised in a survey of professors earlier this spring. To some, the problems remain.

“The dean is just ill-prepared for the job,” psychology professor Steve Howe said. “We’ve got a dean that can’t even facilitate the most basic processes. It’s a mess.”

The most bitter criticism came from Jana Braziel, associate dean for academic affairs before she resigned earlier in mid-April. “I unequivocally feel that you have failed as the leader of McMicken College,” she wrote in an email widely circulated on the UC campus.

Jackson didn’t respond directly to the criticism but acknowledged that the financial strains “have caused a whole lot of angst.”

“We’ll get there together,” he said. “That’s the only way we’re going to get there.”

Quote:College bubble

In 2013, The Enquirer explains the confusing and costly world of higher education. Today we examine how financial strain affects an integral part of the region’s largest university.
Three University of Cincinnati colleges – Arts & Sciences, Allied Health and Pharmacy – are offering lump-sum payments to entice professors to retire early. The A&S package started with a one-time payment of 33 percent of base salary, with some increase for those with lower salaries.
Only about a dozen professors have accepted the offers so far. More professors are expected to retire this year before changes in the Ohio pension system take effect.

Coming Sunday

More college students are borrowing more money. Can they pay it off? The Enquirer explores this question and what dangers the college bubble poses for the national economy.

http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20130.../305130022