He saved $4,000 on Xerox copies, slashed magazine subscriptions, coped with a 40 percent budget cut in part-time funding, combined sections of classes to maximize efficiency, conserving every way possible, but Jim Redmond, chairman of the journalism department, is still being told he must do more.
"I'm running a real lean ship here," said Redmond, who has held the position of chairman since 1998. "We're planning for the possibility of another budget cut. Every year since I've been here I've gotten the same or less funding to run this department."
With all the outside fat trimmed off, the meat of the journalism program finally took a bite with the cancellation of two senior-level public relations classes imperative to graduation.
P.R. majors bummed about the cancellations have two options, neither especially desirable, according to some students. They can hold out until the classes, JOUR 4420 and 4440, are offered next spring, prolonging graduation for many wanting to graduate by December. Or they can pay $192 on top of normal tuition costs for each online computer course.
"Some people had jobs lined up after their expected graduation date," said Rick Heiserman, a senior public relations major unhappy with the cancellation.
Taking the monetary hit for the sake of timely graduation may seem logical, but to senior public relations major Miranda Wurdeman the quality of education gained from online classes just isn't good enough.
"For one, it's a lot more work," said Wurdeman, who took a whole slew of online classes when she had a baby. "There's a lot of reading that substitutes for stuff a professor would normally be teaching.
"Online classes don't make you truly feel prepared. I don't feel like I learned as much."
Britt Cross, also a senior P.R. major, agreed, adding that one of her professors advised her to wait until spring and skip the online course. Cross said U of M president Shirley Raines ought to step in and alleviate the problem.
"There's no reason why the president can't find the resources from somewhere else," Cross said.
Redmond stopped short of criticizing Raines, saying "her heart is in the right place." Instead, he complains of an atypical crowd: fickle Tennessee taxpayers skeptical of government expenditures on public works, such as higher education.
"The people of Tennessee refuse to pay for the services they demand," Redmond said. "This isn't an alternative universe where costs can continue to be cut while expenses and student population soar."
Redmond has watched his part-time faculty budget sink from $61,800 in 2002-2003 to $36,970 now. The smaller budget means Redmond is forced to hire fewer part-time faculty to teach journalism courses. Part-timers are considered a bonus because they're paid much less than full-timers and many come from professional agencies, such as The Commercial Appeal, and bring a real-world perspective to educating students.
"What we've got is a bunch of politicians who are too worried about getting reelected and not funding higher education," said Redmond, who mentioned the constant tuition increases coupled with the decrease in services.
Tom Nenon, vice provost for academic affairs, said department chairs have done a wonderful job considering their increasingly limited resources.
"The University is keeping its commitment to engaging itself with the community," Nenon said. "But with that comes heavy investing in technology, for example, that adds up expenses.
"We've decided that this is going to be a comprehensive university that offers nearly all majors and concentrations and serve the residents of the state of Tennessee as best we can. If you're working with limited resources, there are always going to be tradeoffs between what you want to do and what you're forced to do."
Journalism isn't the only department that hurts occasionally.Diane M. Mittelmeier, an administrative associate for the foreign language department, said TAF money, or funds paid by technology access fees, evaporated after just a few years.
In November of 2000, the department received $7,560, followed by a $440 increase. A graduate assistant had to be dismissed when TAF money was reduced to $5,000 in the fall of 2002. After that, the department received no TAF funds.
Mittelmeier said funding for the department has, in her experience, been stagnant. But the price of teaching has gone up, with supplies and salary increases factoring in. The worst cut suffered by the department, she said, was the cancellation of the Russian and Chinese concentrations.
"The reasoning was that the programs weren't sustaining themselves," Mittelmeier said.
The department's low wages offered to part-time faculty has led to difficulties in teaching popular classes, such as introductory Spanish courses.
"We had to cancel one section of SPAN 1010 last fall because we literally couldn't find somebody to teach it," she said.
If Redmond is correct in his assertion that Tennessee needs more revenue to pay for higher education, what would it take to persuade Tennessee's mostly economically conservative citizens to agree to a tax hike?
Dr. Matthias Kaelberer, a professor of political science at The U of M, said a consensus between both political parties could foster an atmosphere where citizens might be less skeptical. He said the public might approve if the money was specifically earmarked for higher education.
"The politicians would have to forge a consensus," Kaelberer said, "so people would believe extra money wouldn't be exploited. It's still very politically risky to propose such a measure."
