Only six months have passed since stock market woes and financial hard times commandeered the headlines of newspapers. As a result budget cuts have become almost unavoidable.
Some days it seems like the current economic situation has become something of a cliché used as a excuse by stingy consumers. It also serves as a convenient reason to boycott certain expensive mega-monster coffee shops. Try it sometime.
Today for an increasing number of people this cliché has become a concrete reality as jobs get axed by budget cuts. California has the third highest unemployment rate in the nation at 8.4 percent according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Pepperdine employees current and former have felt the tug of reorganization. But overall Pepperdine University is doing well considering the sources of its funding and its financial obligations.
Still the effects of recent cutbacks have been felt here in Malibu as well as overseas in Pepperdine’s International Programs.
In the fall semester Pepperdine trimmed dollars eliminating small expenses such as candy for residence hall walk-throughs.
More significantly the university has a hiring freeze. Initiating a hiring freeze is an economic savings strategy for many universities. “If someone leaves and it takes a month or two to fill it that’s a sixth of the salary that is unspent said Rob Nelson, vice president of finance for the University of North Carolina, in November. This was in response to a statement from North Carolina Gov. Mike Easley warned state schools to prepare for a 4 percent budget cut.
Take Housing and Community Living (HCL) at Pepperdine, for example. In August, HCL began the year with one resident director short.
After a summer of intense interviews and narrowing down the candidates, they felt ready to hire from among the highly qualified finalists. Unfortunately, a new RD was never welcomed to the HCL team; Pepperdine won’t be hiring a new one any time soon because of financial hardships.
If government-funded schools like this university of North Carolina are tightening their belts in response to shrinking funds, it should come as no surprise that Pepperdine, a privately-funded institution, has been forced to do the same.
This might put things in perspective: One of the UNC campuses was recently forced to indefinitely delay a long-awaited $47 million building for its education division.
As cumbersome as Seaver’s mid-campus maze is, at least the construction goes on. Luckily, Pepperdine students can still expect a bright and shiny new Elkins Auditorium in the fall.
Though these budget cuts are not the end of the world, there is never a good time to get sick, never a convenient time for a flat tire. It’s never convenient for people to lose their jobs.
Resident Director Adam Baron said 63 people recently lost their jobs at Pepperdine. About half those jobs were Facilities Management and Planning employees. Pepperdine’s hiring freeze in the fall was obviously not enough to keep spending at a minimum. Budgets are being cut in many divisions. Student Affairs alone took a half-million dollar hit, according to Baron.
As for athletics, next year will be the last season for the men’s track team.
If students never took advantage of Tech Central’s complementary virus scans, they are out of luck. What used to be free will now cost $40. It’s all a part of cutting costs.
In situations like these, many schools resort to scrapping art-related programs. If her 2010 budget is passed, Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm’s decision to cut nearly $8 million in art funding will directly detriment the University of Michigan-Flint’s program.
Thankfully, this does not seem to be the case for Pepperdine’s fine arts division. The shows will go on, but maybe at reduced production budgets.
Here is the good news. Where the least observant economic pundits warn of a treacherous job market, there is security for students seeking work within the same market. Student Employment has not taken any hits according to Student Services Coordinator, JoEllen Sturgeon.
For the moment, on-campus jobs are still available to students eligible for work-study or the patchy departmental pay.”
No institution of higher education can weather a recession unscathed.
In a perfect world every athlete who receives a scholarship to wear the orange and blue would keep that right for their entire stay at Pepperdine.
But to quote President Obama our challenge is to see the hardtimes as a chance to “discover great opportunity in the midst of great crisis.”