To: jlyon@bendbulletin.com

Subject: Higher Education

Dear Julia:

I am sorry you tried to get me yesterday afternoon and I wasn't in. The UO Senate met yesterday (1500-1715) and I had to attend that meeting to act as moderator of a Senate Panel "Intercollegiate Athletics and Higher Education". I tried calling your phone number (1-541-617-7831) when I got in this morning and left a message on your answering machine. So rather than play "phone tag", I figured I would send you an email.

The subject of your email request is, of course, a very timely one. By a fortunate coincidence, Governor Kulongoski visited the University of Oregon yesterday -- he spent about 40 minutes with a group of faculty and administrators here and I was among those invited to attend. I was very heartened by his message. He said that although there is a tendency to look at what is wrong, we should tell the public that their investment in post secondary education is well worth it and that the public is getting good value -- that there is a tremendous return on investment in higher education. He emphasized that business and Oregon need to look long term and that is needed is infrastructure investment. He included post secondary education as a crucial part of that picture.

Now those are very heartening words from the Governor. I am delighted he is taking a leadership role in stopping the disinvestment in higher education. Sepaking personally, I believe in public education -- and the fact that we provide a public (as opposed to a purely private) good. That belief is why I came to the UO in the first place 22 years ago. Both of my children (George and Emily) go to the UO. They are getting a first rate education and I am proud of them (and of us). Education is not vocational training. It is "learning how to learn" and it produces transformational effects on the lives of our citizens.

I said I was heartened by the Governor's words - and I am. However, that having been said, higher education faces some very difficult times ahead. I heard some very somber news at the UO Senate meeting. The full interim report of the Senate Budget Committee is posted on the web http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~uosenate/dirsen034/SBC-14Jan04.html and you might take a look at it. The facts listed there apply, naturally enough, only to the UO. But similar facts pertain to every OUS institution in our state. For example - a few quotes from that document:

• 1. UO's State appropriation has declined from $139 million in the past biennium to an estimated $121 million in the current biennium, assuming we receive no further disappropriations. This amount is $5 million less than the state funding we received in the 1989-91 biennium, when we had about 2000 fewer students. Combined with inflation and enrollment growth, this appropriation shortfall is the reason tuition has had to increase substantially over this period.
• 2. The tuition increases have not made up for state appropriation decreases, and certainly have not been due to increased expenditures. On an inflation-adjusted basis, UO's educational expenditure per student has decreased by 11% just since 1998!
• 3. If Measure 30 fails on February 3, it is estimated that UO will lose an additional approximately $2.5 million in state appropriations, perhaps more.
• 4. If OUS has to return approximately $14 million in implied "PERS savings" to the state general fund in January 2005, as is currently required by legislative act, the impact on UO will be an additional cut of approximately $4.5 million.

I emphasize, similar difficulties face the other OUS institutions -- Chancellor Jarvis provided a similar picture for all the OUS institutions when he met with the IFS in October 2003. Details of that presentation are also available on the web http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~ifs/IFS-Oct03-Chan/IFS-CJ-3Oct.html

Another way to look at it. In 1991-2000, the state funded approximately 51% and students provided approximately 49% of the funding for instruction. The current figures are 36% and 64%. So the state now provides approximately 1/3 of the instructional cost! This causes real problems. Last year I had a student in my 0800 vector calculus course. He worked evenings and weekends at a local pizza joint to make ends meet. An increase of $200 in tuition translates to roughly 30 hours extra work at $7 per hour. That is a huge burden. And he didn't know how to meet it.

I am President of the InterInstitutional Faculty Senate. I am also President of the Oregon Conference of the American Association of University Professors. I believe in higher education and the transformative effect it has on peoples lives. It is one of the few "positive sum" games in town!

In my humble opinion, what Higher Education needs is stable and predictable funding and not the constant downward trend we have seen for a long time. The constant cost shifting from the state to the students. And the tuition "tax" of $14 million is disgraceful (see item (4) above). If we have to raise tuition to return $14,000,000 to the state, well that makes my blood boil.

We are always told to "run it like a business". It is hard to operate in this way when we are constantly faced with additional budget cuts (see items 3 and 4 above). I view the governor's recent actions as greatly heartening. He is taking an active role in higher education and has promised to stop the pattern of disinvestment that has gone on for too long. This is great!

You can check our web sites for further information http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~ifs/ifs03.html http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~aaup/diroregon/OREGONaaup.html

Wow. I seem to have nattered on for a long time. I hope I answered your question! If not, feel free to call. I have a pretty heavy teaching load this quarter, but I am free today at about 1300.

Peter B Gilkey
President InterInstitutional Faculty Senate
President Oregon Conference AAUP
Professor of Mathematics
University of Oregon
Eugene Or 97403
1-541-346-4717