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USF Overhauls Colleges To Counter Budget Cuts

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By ADAM EMERSON | The Tampa Tribune

Published: June 12, 2008

TAMPA - University of South Florida leaders have swept through their various colleges and reworked the way they will deliver a higher education to meet the grim budget realities they now face.

The biggest changes will hit the College of Arts and Sciences, USF's largest. Although the college gains some institutes that stood alone at the university, it will undergo an administrative overhaul and lose some disciplines to other colleges.

The changes prompted the college's dean, John Skvoretz, to step down earlier this week. Skvoretz, who will remain on the USF faculty, said he was dismayed watching what he called the "dismantling" of his college.

USF Provost Ralph Wilcox, however, told faculty in a letter today that a multimillion-dollar budget cut from the state "will demand changes in both institutional structure and behavior."

The university will develop a new college featuring some disciplines formerly housed in Arts and Sciences. The schools of aging studies and social work, for instance, will align with the Louis de la Parte Florida Mental Health Institute to become the new college.

In addition, the College of Arts and Sciences will be rebuilt around three schools: behavioral and social sciences; humanities; and sciences.

Some of those schools will include disciplines that had their own administration and support staff, but now will share resources with others in the college during these leaner times.

There will be challenges, Wilcox said, and there may be more changes. "I have every confidence that, with careful thought and deliberation, reasonable people will develop reasonable solutions to the challenges we face," he said.

Altogether, the university lost $35.6 million in revenue from the state over two fiscal years, a cut that has cost the university hundreds of jobs.

USF President Judy Genshaft told trustees today that the university has laid off about 42 employees, which include 34 staff members, five administrators and three faculty members.

The pink slips won't stop there, though. As the university sets aside an additional $15 million in anticipation of another state cut, officials plan as many as 30 more layoffs, said Trudie Frecker, USF's interim chief financial officer.

The rest of the cuts will eliminate vacant positions.

The budget-cutting proposals USF announced last month have the greatest impact on the College of Arts and Sciences. Of the nearly $22 million the university will cut from the academic operations on the Tampa campus, about $7 million will come out of Arts and Sciences.

Reporter Adam Emerson can be reached at (813) 259-8285 or aemerson@tampatrib.com.

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