September 20, 2010. Plans at FAU include expanded lecture classes, “increasing reliance on lower cost instructional personnel” and “reallocating faculty resources to areas of greatest need, demand, and payoff.”
(Entire report in pdf format may be downloaded by clicking here.)
EXCERPT FROM REPORT:
State University System
Efficiencies
Universities were requested to provide examples of the efficiencies they have
undertaken or are in the process of initiating. The following one-page summaries
highlight each individual universities accomplishment.
The Delta Cost Project report1 on Trends in College Spending looks at college
and university spending from 1998-2008 and focuses on three areas:
• Where does the money come from?
• Where does it go?
• What does it buy?
We are all familiar with ‘Where does the money come from?’ Student tuition,
state appropriations, private gifts, auxiliary enterprises, and federal and state
contracts and grants make up the primary revenue sources. As expected, cuts in
state appropriations have led to significant tuition increases.
The expenditure of these funds are categorized in standard expense categories;
instruction, research, student services, public service, academic support,
institutional support, and operations and maintenance. In summary, the report
reflects an increase in education and related costs, increases in research
spending, and no significant increase in public service spending.
Educational opportunities, degree production and research are the primary
expenditure of the funds, with degree and completion ratios as the main
performance measure used to gauge educational out-put.
Florida Atlantic University
Efficiencies
Efficiencies Achieved
• Revamped business processes including vendor payments with a consequent
savings in personnel costs while raising service levels.
• Eliminated academic and university support positions to preserve faculty
instructional time and effort; concentrated faculty activity on instruction and
away from administrative assignments.
• Reduced energy consumption and food waste following an extensive energy
audit.
• Maximizing class enrollments and instructor and room utilization. All
colleges are engaged in this university-wide enrollment management effort.
• Course demand is closely monitored and new sections are opened to meet
demand only when existing sections are approaching capacity.
• Academic services have been reviewed and consolidated on partner campus
to provide efficient services and meet student needs while expending fewer
resources.
Efforts Underway
• Increasing number of students served in large lectures to further conserve on
instructional assignments and maximize faculty productivity.
• Adjustments to staff assignments to create off-peak personnel savings.
• Studying ways to make partner campuses more efficient.
• On-going campus energy conservation and sustainability measures including
minimum LEED Silver certification on all major construction.
Efforts Planned
• Increasing reliance on lower cost instructional personnel to teach lower
division students.
• Maximizing research productivity of senior faculty with consequent increases
in sponsored research awards and expenditures.
• Reallocating faculty resources to areas of greatest need, demand, and payoff.