UNC-system and University officials worry about budget cuts to academic core

In discussions regarding the UNC system’s inevitable reduction in state funding, administrators have repeatedly said that “protecting the academic core” remains their priority.

But after four years of cuts totaling about $600 million, provosts and faculty at universities across the system indicate that the core has already been compromised, and it could be significantly damaged this year if the Republican leadership’s proposal to reduce funding by 17.4 percent is approved.

There is not a clear definition for a university’s academic core, said Jim Martin, secretary of the UNC-system faculty assembly.

“Academic core is a word that gets thrown around a lot,” he said. “But it has been very poorly defined.”

Administrators have good intentions in trying to protect the academic core, but they also want to say they’re protecting it to look good politically, he said.

“Yes, it is rhetoric,” he said. “And yes, it is trying to mitigate the damage.”

Bruce Carney, provost and executive vice chancellor at UNC-CH, said the academic core can’t be quantitatively defined.

“The key word here is ‘academic’ — that is, the instructional mission of the University,” he said.

“We start with the undergraduate experience,” Carney said. “That would be the real core of the University.”

Carney said UNC-CH has managed to protect most of its academic core so far.

“It’s fundamentally the academic experience of the students,” Carney said. “How are the students seeing their education delivered to them?”

In previous years, other non-academic units have felt the brunt of the cuts, but all aspects of the University — including its academic core — will feel the upcoming round of budget cuts, he said.

“Everybody’s going to feel it at some level,” Carney said. “If we have 15 percent, it will be seriously damaged.”

David Perrin, provost and executive vice chancellor at UNC-Greensboro, said the university took the majority of its cuts from non-academic areas in past years of budget cuts.

“But now we have come to the place where there’s no place left to go for the cuts and be able to function as a university,” he said.

The university’s academic core comprises of courses essential for graduation, such as general education and major requirements, Perrin said.

“We’ve done a pretty good job at protecting the academic core so that we haven’t seen dramatic increases in the time required to graduate,” Perrin said.

“If this round of cuts requires us to significantly reduce allocations to the academic core, then I would expect us to begin to see increased time to graduation.”

System administrators are considering allocating funding to universities based on graduation and retention rates, he said.

Martin said enrollment growth, not just budget cuts, threatens the academic core.

“Your academic core is going to be hurt because you don’t have the resources commensurate with the growth,” he said.

“We’ve got challenges ahead of us, and I am very concerned when I look at what’s happening to our entire education system.”

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