The budget for arts and sciences has fallen short by about $4 million this year, spurring the administration to dip into the division's $7 million reserves and search for ways to offset the increasing cost of hiring new professors.
"The main cause is a capital problem," said William Chafe, dean of the faculty of arts and sciences. "The amount of money we're putting in construction, computers.... It's skyrocketed. It's a problem across the country."
The current budget is $200 million, 85 percent of which is raised through tuition. Over the past three years, arts and sciences' computing budget has doubled, as has the demand for funding for renovations, new classrooms and scientific infrastructure.
In short, the growth in funding has not kept pace with these budget demands.
"Start-up costs in the physical and life sciences have skyrocketed at all universities, with the result that it becomes increasingly difficult to plan for new start-ups within existing operating funds," Chafe said in a Sept. 7 address to the Arts and Sciences Council.
The cost of preparing office, classroom and lab space for each new junior faculty hire has risen from $300,000 to $600,000 over the last several years, and preparations for senior faculty now cost $1.5 million.
And although the school will use reserves to cover the deficit, the administration must find ways to finance growing costs in the future.
"It decreases your degrees of freedom," said Robert Thompson, dean of Trinity College. "You can draw down the reserves... but you can't draw them down forever."
Some have raised concerns that the deficit would affect the number of faculty hired in the next few years. Fifty-two faculty members were hired this year, a great leap above the average of 35. This year, 29 searches have been authorized.
In his Sept. 7 address, Chafe said he will more closely scrutinize requests for new faculty because of this year's big boost. "For new positions to be authorized, we will need to either identify existing slots as a funding source to be generated by retirements or departures, or raise substantial new sums for faculty chairs that will provide an incremental budget source for these faculty positions," he said.
Chafe, who said the deficit will not shrink without some budget cuts, acknowledged that fewer faculty searches this year may upset departments hoping to add faculty.
Marjorie McElroy, chair of the economics department, requested five searches this year but was only granted two. "Despite [recent] gains, our faculty remains too small to maintain programmatic distinction without substantial growth," she wrote in an e-mail. "Simply put, to fulfill the needs of the University and its students... we need to grow."
The current economics faculty is close in size to that of 1991, despite a 167 percent increase in the number of economics majors.
Chairs of the departments of English, religion and sociology said they understood the need to reduce faculty searches, especially given the 52 successful searches this year.
And although some said they wished they had more input in the matter, others felt the current process is adequate. "We don't get involved that much into the budgetary... matters," said Robert Brandon, chair of the philosophy department. "On the other hand, a lot of us don't want to get that much involved.... We're busy doing what we're doing running a department." He added, however, that if arts and sciences must cut spending somewhere, faculty development should not be targeted.
Chafe said he is working on developing long-range financing from the central administration, and that in the next four or five years, the school will push for more grant support. The $7 million reserve fund, which was at just $250,000 three years ago, was intended to provide funds during a crisis and can be drained to $3.5 million.
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.