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O B E R L I N C O L L E G E F A C U L T Y A N D S T A F F N E W S
Volume 17, Number 10
T he
February 9, 1996
The Weekly Observer:
Half As Big, Twice As Often
Nancy Dye and Andy Evans
Answer Questions about the Budget
President Nancy Dye and Vice President for Finance Andy Evans have been answering questions left and right concerning the bud- get and the structural deficit. Here is a sam- pling from an in-house Tuesday press con- ference and Wednesday’s administrative and professional-staff breakfast.
Q. What happens if we don’t cut the $ million structural deficit this year? A. The deficit keeps building until the struc- tural changes are made. If we don’t cut the $ million this year, it will be $4 million next year, and if we don’t cut it then, it will be $ million the year after that.
Q. Are all the cuts decided by now? A. No, some units are still forming their plans. At this point everything is negotiable except the bottom line.
Q. What besides staff reduction is being done to eliminate the structural deficit? A. We need to look at waste. Also, we are contemplating an accounting change in the way we handle postretirement health ben- efits. The benefits would still be there, but we may not need to set aside as much money as we have been setting aside. The savings could be $400,000 to $500,000.
Q. How do you reconcile budget cutting with building the Environmental Studies Center? A. The Environmental Studies Center is be- ing built all on soft money, all raised for that project alone. Building the center won’t af- fect our hard-money budget. The Environ- mental Studies Program is central to Oberlin’s mission, and pulls students to Oberlin. We are raising the funds from
sources that are not usual for us. Few alumni have been approached, and the people who are giving money to the center would not be giving money to Oberlin for any other purpose. The funds being raised include a maintenance endowment, so that the struc- ture will not put pressure on the College operating budget.
Q. What will happen after we cut the $ million? A. We will go forward, being much more mindful of how we do business. For many years we weren’t mindful about tuition in- creases. We are now in danger of pricing ourselves over the cliff.
Q. How many positions are gone already? A. Twenty positions have already been elimi- nated. Many of them were vacant. Extra-help positions are taking a big hit, and so are intern positions.
Q. What kind of termination policy is the College developing? A. One that is based on years of service and a sense of equity: advance notice and a bridge to other employment, and salary and benefits while the employee is in a state of transition.
Q. Why are we approaching severance this way? A. You have to think of what kind of employer you want Oberlin to be. That informs what you think is equitable. Oberlin College is a major economic actor in a small community that is not particularly affluent. A number of things will not happen at Oberlin. For example, we will not outsource custodial services. It would be a breach of the relationship we have with our employees, a violation of principles of equity.
Operations and Human Resources Describe Restructuring Plans
The Changes in Student Life and Services Will Take Longer to Decide
As Oberlin College moves ahead in eliminat- ing $3 million from next year’s budget, two campus units are far enough along with their plans to announce reorganiza- tions that yield structural-deficit reduc-
tion. Donna Raynsford, Vice President for Operations, and Ruth Spencer, Director of Human Resources, spoke earlier this week of the planned changes in their units. Gene Matthews, Operations’ director of facili-
ties maintenance, and Charlene Cole, dean of student life and services, added more information.
Shifts in the
Operations Division
Operations has eliminated two vacant posi- tions, a position funded by the extra-help budget line, and the position of director of facilities services, Raynsford said Tuesday. One of the eliminated vacant positions is a groundskeeper, in the Grounds Department. “We have maintained the quality of grounds care for over a year without some- one in that position,” said Raynsford, “and I am sure we can continue this way, thanks to the skill and dedication of the current staff. “In the carpenter shop we have five autho- rized positions and have been funding a sixth from the extra-help line,” Raynsford said. When Bill Annable retires later this month the division will be able to move the extra- help carpenter into the permanent-employee ranks, and eliminate the extra-help line. Several changes in Central Heating Plant personnel will save the College money while opening a new trainee position, Matthews said Wednesday. Budgeted for seven operat- ing engineers and three helpers, the heating plant recently had two helpers transfer to Facilities Services. Those heating-plant po- sitions have been eliminated. The remaining helper, Doug Simmons, is in training to be- come an engineer, and should earn his li- cense in the next year or so, Matthews said. Soon a new heating-plant trades-trainee position—open only to Oberlin’s classified Continued on page 2
The Observer has gone weekly for the spring semester, and moved from Thursdays to Fri- days. As you can see, it has also shrunk in size. We hope the increased frequency satisfies readers’ wishes to be kept abreast of College moves to eliminate the $3 million structural deficit, and that you’ll welcome being kept more up to date with other campus news.
Page 2 The Observer February 9, 1996
President Nancy Dye will ad- dress the Akron Round Table February 15. Her speech, “Campus Unrest: Life and Learning at College Today,” will be broadcast live on WKSU and the Internet (http://www.wksu.kent.edu) pre- ceded by a press conference, public recep- tion, and luncheon. Dye was recently elected a presidential member of the ex- ecutive committee for the Association of Independent Colleges and Universities of Ohio, a public-relations, re- search, and government-liai- son organization of 47 insti- tutions of higher education. • Larry Herman , director of public relations and career development for the conservatory, plays trum- pet; Marci Janas , staff writer
in the Office of Communications, reads one of her poems; and Kay Thomson , assistant director of major gifts, narrates the title-track story in Emma’s Christmas , a November release by the Tower Brass Quintet on the Capstone recording label. • Associate Professor of Computer Science Rhys Price Jones addressed the 20th An- niversary Scheme Workshop on Scheme’s contribution to liberal arts computer-science education January 21. Scheme is the “programming underpinning” of most upper-level computer-science courses at Oberlin, says Price Jones. He served on a panel at the concur- rent 23rd ACM SIGACT- SIGPLAN Symposium on Principles of Programming
Languages. • Last month Notre Dame Press published Gil Meilaender ’s Body, Soul, and Bioethics. Meilaender is Francis Ward and Lydia Lord Davis Professor of Religion.
News Notes
An Oberlin Faculty First:
Jeffrey Hamburger Wins
Humboldt Fellowship Irvin Houck Associate Professor in the Hu- manities Jeffrey Hamburger has won a re- search fellowship from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation in Bonn that will sup- port his travel to and from Germany and research there for a year. “I believe this is the first time any mem- ber of the Oberlin faculty has won a Humboldt fellowship,” says Hamburger. Grants-infor- mation officer Barbara Fuchsman concurs. “I don’t have any other Humboldts in my data base,” she says, hedging “for the distant past I cannot speak.” Hamburger will be studying the illumi- nated manuscripts and early printed editions of the writings of Heinrich Seuse (Henry Suso), a German mystic who died in 1366. He will spend next year in Munich, which has Germany’s best concentration of library re- sources. Hamburger’s host institution and home base in Munich, the Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte, has the best art-history library in Germany, Hamburger says. Hamburger’s research will culminate in his third book, “Exemplary Images: The Art of Devotion in the Writings of Heinrich Seuse_._ ” While in Munich Hamburger will also compile a description of all the extant illus- trated manuscripts of Seuse’s works. The Bavarian Academy of Sciences has commis- sioned the project for a larger catalogue of vernacular German illuminated manuscripts. Seuse, says Hamburger, is one of the most influential spiritual writers of the Later Middle Ages. What makes him especially interesting to Hamburger is that his writings are illus- trated with images Seuse devised, and im- ages play an integral role in Seuse’s devo- tional practice. “His writings provide one of the most extensive and self-conscious commentaries on the place of art in devotion from the Middle Ages,” says Hamburger. Because Seuse wrote almost exclusively for nuns, in exploring Seuse’s work Hamburger will be continuing his interest in the role of images in female spirituality. Hamburger’s second book is “Nuns As Artists: The Visual Culture of a Medieval Convent,” forthcoming from the University of California Press.
Restructuring... Continued from page 1
service employees—will be posted, Matthews said. The College and the UAW, which repre- sents Oberlin’s service employees, are working out the details of the contract. Under it, the College will pay for the heating-plant trainee to go to school, and in four years the trainee should qualify as a licensed operating engineer, raising the plant’s count of operating engineers to nine. In the HVAC (heating, ventilating, and air conditioning) area, an HVAC technician recently resigned, said Matthews. The Col- lege will not replace him with another jour- neyman technician, Matthews said, but will instead establish another trades-trainee posi- tion, a four-year on-the-job training opportu- nity leading to journeyman status. The elimination of the director of facilities services position will lead to more reorganiza- tion down the line, Raynsford said. For the time being, Facilities Services area managers will report directly to Raynsford. Meeting with the trades and custodial staff Wednesday, Raynsford announced that the division’s sav- ings target had been met, and that no other positions in their areas would be eliminated.
H.R Office Assesses
Other Units, Reorganizes Itself
When the College focus groups met in De- cember [see the February 1 Observer ], one of the recommendations they made was that reductions in force affect temporary posi- tions before permanent positions. Conse- quently, the Office of Human Resources has
been reviewing all temporary positions, Ruth Spencer said Wednesday, to see whether the work that is being done by temporary workers is in fact temporary or permanent in nature. The human-resources office is not im- mune from budget cuts itself, and one of the two positions it has eliminated is a temporary clerical position; the other is a permanent management position. While meeting her unit’s budget guidelines, Spencer was able to reopen the benefits-manager position, va- cant since Carolyn Gregory left about a year ago. Filling the benefits-manager position is important, said Spencer, “because benefits are such a high priority to employees.” The human-resources office administers some $10.5 million in benefits. Budget-director Sandra Youngeberg-Fox is switching officially from the Operations Division to the Office of Human Resources, but not even Youngeberg-Fox will notice much difference. She will keep the same desk in the same office and “still crunch numbers for Operations sometimes,” said Spencer. Youngeberg-Fox has been direct- ing Human Resource’s budget for some time. Spencer will be working with departments across the campus to help them identify work that does not need to be done—a necessary step in the reduction-in-force process that is accompanying structural-deficit reduction.
Student Life and Services:
Still Going for the Big Picture
“Student-life changes will take longer than, for example, those in Operations,” says Presi- continued on page 4
Page 4 The Observer February 9, 1996
University of Virginia Architecture Dean to Design
Oberlin’s Environmental Studies Building
By Anne C. Paine and Brad Masi ’
William McDonough, whom Time magazine called in 1993 “the most visionary of green designers,” has been named architect of Oberlin’s Environmental Studies Center. McDonough, principal of the firm William McDonough + Partners in Charlottesville, Virginia, is also dean of the School of Archi- tecture and Elson Professor of Architecture at the University of Virginia. A leader in ecological architecture for
two decades, McDonough designed the first solar-heated house in Ireland in 1976 and the first “green” office, the Environmental Defense Fund headquarters, in 1985. A founding member of the American Insti- tute of Architects’ Committee on the Envi- ronment and an advisor to the President’s Council on Sustainable Development, McDonough was also the lead designer for the Greening of the White House, a $ million project initiated by President Bill Clinton to make the White House more
economically and environmentally sound. In preparation for the World’s Fair in 2000, the city of Hannover, Germany, has com- missioned McDonough to write “The Hannover Principles,” a document outlin- ing design principles for participating ar- chitects. Oberlin’s $2.5 million, 10,000-square- foot facility will incorporate ecological design principles, integrating the building with its environment (see the Observer of October 26, 1995). The facility will sup- port growing student interest in the envi- ronmental-studies program and will be an educational resource for Oberlin students, community members, and builders and developers in Northeast Ohio, says Profes- sor of Environmental Studies David Orr, who initiated the project and is raising the funds for it. Over the next four months McDonough
- Partners will work with the Oberlin com- munity to develop a consensus on the center’s mission, decide space allocations, and select a site, says Orr. By June 1996 conceptual designs should be completed, he says. Ground breaking is set for June 1997, with occupancy due July 1998. Details of the project are on the World Wide Web at http://www.oberlin.edu/ ~envs. The March issue of Around the Square will carry a feature story about the building and its architect.
Anne C. Paine is director of publications in the Office of Communications. Brad Masi is an environmental-design planner in the En- vironmental Studies Program.
The Observer is on line at http://www.oberlin.edu/~observer/main.html.
Special College Faculty Meeting
Called Tuesday to Discuss the Budget On Tuesday Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences Mary Ella Feinleib called a special meeting of the College Faculty to discuss the college budget in light of the College decision to eliminate its structural deficit. Even though the budget transition is bound to be “somewhat painful,” Feinleib said, changes in the college budget aim to follow December focus-groups’ call for protection and improvement of Oberlin’s ability to provide a first-rate education to first-rate students. Feinleib shared the main components of the A&S expense budget and the dollar amount of the reductions now called for. She described some reductions already made. More than two-thirds of the reduc- tions remain to be identified. Even though the College needs to cut the full amount for next fiscal year, substitutions may still be made after then, Feinleib said. She pre-
ferred, she said, more consultation with faculty before making far-reaching deci- sions. The impact of the budget cuts would be felt in the college, Feinleib said, but given the relatively large size of the budget base, the reductions are feasible. Following Feinleib’s presentation, the faculty asked questions and made sugges- tions about topics that included
- cutting down on faculty-leave replace- ments
- encouraging more early retirements
- using program reviews as a guide to restructure departments
- optimizing financial aid Discussion included concern about needing to make many important changes in a short amount of time. The deadline for mailing 1996-97 budget proposals to Col- lege trustees is February 27. The trustees meet March 7-9.
Restructuring...
Continued from page 2
dent Nancy Dye. “How long depends on how the process and discussions go.” Since the semester has begun, two discus- sion sessions have brought students together with Dye, Vice President for Finance Andy Evans, Budget Director Bob Knight, and Dean of Student Life and Services Charlene Cole. The first session, involving about 40 stu- dents who are residence-hall coordinators, was Monday night; the second, with more than 100 student-organization leaders and students who eat in the Longman dining hall,
was Tuesday. Both sessions aimed to learn what changes students envision for student life as well as what features they would like to see remain. Evans, on Monday, and Knight, on Tuesday, also spoke about the structural deficit with the students. Some of the topics of concern to the students, says Cole, are financial aid, women’s health, choice in meal plans, food waste, and campuswide allocation of computers. Stu- dents want to keep program houses and say that support for multiculturalism is impor- tant, she says; they also “offered positive feedback on student counseling.” At Tuesday’s meeting Cole distributed to the students bright yellow cards to gather more
information about their likes and dislikes. Cole has scheduled four more sessions with students in February, including one last night. Besides conferring with students, Cole is consulting with her staff and others. Virtu- ally the entire Student Life and Services staff (over a hundred people) attended a five-day retreat last week at which staff members gave presentations to each other about what they do. Cole plans to bring to campus consultants in the areas of security services, student health, and residential life. “I want [this office] to be efficient and to meet the needs of students,” says Cole, “—to make this office better than I found it.”
