A deficit of up to several million dollars is forcing the graduate school to cut costs and lay off a top official as it feels the backlash of overallocating too many fellowships two years ago.
“The graduate school is operating in their deficit,” said Ann Wylie, interim dean of the graduate school and university President Dan Mote’s chief of staff. “We’re just not able to do much, basically, until we get the debt paid back. There have been mistakes made.”
The school recently laid off a senior staff member Trudy Lindsey, who was the director of student services.
Wylie said the debt adds up easily to “several million dollars” depending on how many students accept fellowships this semester. Because of the nature of many graduate fellows’ studies, the graduate school is unable to determine how much it will pay in stipends until the end of the semester and therefore cannot calculate the deficit precisely.
Two years ago, there was a misunderstanding in the number of fellowships available, Wylie said. The graduate school offered fellowships beyond its available resources and more students than expected accepted offers.
Students on fellowship receive a stipend — a minimum of $12,000 a year — and tuition remission. The fellowships offered were for a two-year period.
“Part of the problem, as I understand it, is the fellowships were two-year offers, and you’ve just doubled the problem,” said Provost Bill Destler. “The graduate school now sees the pressure on the current funding.”
In addition, funding for the second year was not accounted for when the fellowships were offered, Wylie said. The mistake was made two years ago, but the deficit could continue for up to three years.
The university funds about 300 fellows a year and has a budget of $3 million to $4 million for fellowships, Destler said.
“[Fellowships] were given at a higher rate than it was supposed to be,” said Mote. “I think we got this under control now. You have to remember that this money was given to students, not to anyone else.”
However, the graduate school will have to repay the full amount. It borrowed money from a university budget that serves as a reserve whenever there is overspending by any university department, Destler said.
“We have to pay the university back for our expenses,” Wylie said. “We just can’t expect the university to eat our mistakes. We will have to curtail our expenditures until we pay back our debt.”
The graduate school began streamlining its procedures under the leadership of Dennis O’Connor, who resigned last year as the graduate school dean and vice president for research. Fellowships were once distributed through the graduate school, but now that responsibility falls to individual colleges and programs.
The graduate school moved its admissions staff to the undergraduate office because both have similar operations. Lindsey, who oversaw the admissions process for graduates, was laid off because she basically lost her staff during this transition, Wylie said.
“Their jobs in a sense just vanished,” Wylie said. “There was a change in function.”
The graduate school also cut funding to the Graduate Student Government, which will have to be completely self-sufficient by fiscal year 2008. The GSG receives two stipends totaling about $16,000, each including tuition remission for the GSG president and director of operations.
When O’Connor resigned, the graduate school and the Division of Research was split into two separate entities under two deans. The provost’s office created a task force to examine the future of the graduate school and to make recommendations on its administrative duties. The report was released earlier this week and stated the graduate school will retain most of the same functions and will remain separate from the Research Office.
