UNLV Faculty Senate meeting to discuss budget crisis

This Tuesday, February 15, the UNLV Faculty Senate meeting (at 12:15 in Student Union 208) will be devoted to a discussion of the impact of Governor's Sandoval proposed 29% cut in state support on UNLV academic programs and their students and faculty.

President Smatresk will speak and is expected to announce how he plans to approach the roughly $30 million UNLV will need to cut from academic programs in the coming year if the Governor's budget passes. (For perspective, thats 6 times the size of the cut in last year's program review, which resulted in the termination of 6 programs. UNLV currently has about 60 academic departments.)

Simple math suggests that a $30m cut to academic programs would mean approximately 300 state-funded positions would have to be cut, on top of the over 400 state-funded positions that have been cut since 2007. For perspective, UNLV's full-time academic faculty currently number just over 900 and all professional staff about 1900. So 300 more positions is another 12-15% of our educational work force eliminated.

This is a serious threat to the UNLV faculty and students, and it would behoove all NFA members and those concerned with the future of our region and state to attend or read the reporting here.