Despite large budget cuts, The University of Memphis continuesto spend money on travel. In the last fiscal year, about $5.8million was SPENT on administrative, athletiC and research travel,as well as travel funded by outside sources.
However, deans and administrators defend travel in theirdepartments as necessary to keep their departments from fallingbehind.
For example, budget cuts forced the Dean of Libraries, SylvernaFord, to cut a minimum of $230,000 from the periodicals budget, yetshe chose to maintain faculty travel spending that was about$29,000 last year.
"It's hard to say that one is more important than the other,"Ford said.
Ford said that expenses for periodicals are growing every year,and without cutting funds for them, periodicals would be the onlything the library would be able to update.
Maintaining travel allows faculty to go to meetings to learnmore about DRA, the system that supports the on-line catalog forThe University, and attend meetings of the Tennessee LibraryAssociation, according to Ford.
It allows the libraries to stay up to date, she said.
Travel would be one of the last things cut in the Englishdepartment if its budget was slashed, said Stephen Tabachnick,chair of the department. He said that travel funds allow teachersaccess to other ideas and perspectives on a particular issue.Getting the information on the internet would not be thesame--because there is nothing like having to defend your argumentsbefore your peers, Tabachnick said.
And faculty and graduate students "return full of enthusiasm,"he said.
But it also makes the hiring process a lot cheaper. The ModernLanguage Association meeting, which U of M English faculty attendeach year, allows the department to whittle the number ofprospective faculty candidates they must pay to bring to campusdown to three.
The English department spent about $35,000 on instructionaltravel last year. Thatworks out to about $750 per faculty member.And while the department has not had a cut in its operating budgetfor a few years, it is still being cut through inflation.Tabachnick does not expect the English budget to be cut this year,but will wait and see.
Athletics makes up a large chunk of university funds spent ontravel. Athletic travel expenses are not as low they could go, butcurrent travel expenditures allow the university to compete andrecruit nationally, according to Bill Lofton, associate athleticdirector for finance. Cutting expenses would hinder that. Inaddition, he said, the expenditures are not as large as otherschools like The University of Tennessee.
Administrative travel in the athletic department is much lessthan in other areas of The University, Lofton said, speaking fromhis experience as former budget director at The University.
Administrators in accounting spent about $20,000 for travelwhile the president's office spent roughly $16,000.
Student services, like the Student Activities Council, also havetravel expenditures funded by the University. Last year, SAC spentclose to $15,000 on travel. Angie Dunlap, coordinator of studentactivities, said that much of the money was spent on two trips thatSAC takes each year to conferences that preview acts, entertainmentand lectures.
Dunlap said that travel shouldn't be cut out. It would cost SACmore, she said, not to take the trips, because it allows them tocoordinate with other area schools, which is cheaper. SAC travelmoney was also spent on Freshman Frenzy, a program that carriedstudents by bus to two football games.
