Continued budget woes and a spike in financial aid costs will keep Arts and Sciences at least at flat growth for the foreseeable future, despite a likely 4.9 percent increase in tuition next year.
As the budget picture has become clearer throughout the spring, Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences William Chafe and other administrators have begun to float a proposal to department chairs and faculty governance leaders for the future that includes markedly less growth in Arts and Sciences than in the 1990s but without massive faculty cuts.
The likely tuition hike, greater than last year's 3.5 percent increase and the 4.1 percent increase the year before, is still consistent with increases at peer institutions. Last year's tuition increase was among the smallest compared to Duke's top 10 competitors. The Board of Trustees will consider the increase this weekend, with several other big-ticket items - ranging from the progress of the strategic plan to possible readjustments of the strategic investment plan.
Chafe said that 32 faculty searches have been authorized for this spring and that 28 offers would likely be extended. Adding that there is usually about a 75 percent success rate in faculty recruitment, he expected 21 new faculty to be hired this year. The average number of retiring faculty is between 28 and 30.
From the 1992 fiscal year through 2002 fiscal year, an increase of 30 tenure-track faculty and an increase of 46 regular-rank, non-tenure-track faculty led to a growth of Arts and Sciences faculty from 509 to 585. Chafe said that number of faculty would likely remain where it is for the next three years, and if it decreases, only slightly.
A budget task force chaired by Philip Cook, professor of public policy, released a report last October that proposed cutting 50 faculty members as the worst-case scenario. That projection, based on more unfavorable financial data, is very unlikely to happen, however.
"What we were more or less assured of was that the budget was quite sound, and [Cook] really did not expect that the deficit which was predicted for four years down the road would really be something that [might be so bad], because there were so many contingent factors," said Ronald Witt, chair of the Arts and Sciences Council. "That was very reassuring. The initial report was kind of scary, and I think that's what got Duke so much attention across the country."
Meanwhile, financial aid expenditures are set to rise.
"What's mostly new [this year] is increased financial aid commitments, with multiple causes," Chafe said. "There's an increase in the number of students eligible for need-based aid."
Last October's budget report stated the projected 2002-03 undergraduate financial aid would be $24 million and that graduate aid would cost another $18.7 million, totaling 19.4 percent of the total $220.8 million 2002-03 budget.
Chafe said he and other administrators are only beginning to work with predictions, but that the extra costs would amount to a "seven-figure number." James Belvin, director of undergraduate financial aid, said this year saw a 10 percent increase in the number of students eligible for need-based aid.
He said he is still investigating that increase, but expected that it had to do with the economic downturn and greater recruitment of students with diverse socioeconomic backgrounds.
"As you can imagine, if admissions people go into Appalachia... or Watts or any place in the inner city or rural areas, more than likely, what they will be recruiting are students from more dire financial circumstances," Belvin said.
Belvin added that a new, more generous package advocated by a national task force to which Duke belongs - the 568 Working Group - has increased the burden on financial aid, as has less aid in the form of work-study grants from the federal government and a commitment to provide financial aid to international students two years ago.
The crunch may not have an immediate effect on the budget because of a $6 million reserve Duke developed in the 1990s when demand for financial aid money actually declined. Chafe said the reserve would help get Arts and Sciences through this year, but that it would have to plan carefully for when that reserve fund evaporates.
Although Arts and Sciences' worst fears will not likely be realized, the budget crunch has led to some tension.
A recent plan for the Department of Biological Anthropology and Anatomy to move from a jointly administered department in Arts and Sciences and the School of Medicine fully into Arts and Sciences has led to the possibility that faculty in the department would decrease sharply. The medical school is no longer willing to pay for the faculty positions, and the Arts and Sciences budgetary crunch prevents it from supporting that many extra faculty members.
Alan Biermann, chair and professor of computer science, said he wishes his department would grow more as well, given many departments' climb in rankings and prestige in their respective fields.
"We should be growing more than we are," Biermann said. "We're dealing with this in the context of statements from the administrators that growth has to be stopped right now. The University has indicated that the total faculty growth has to be very limited, maybe zero."
Witt, also a professor of history, added that departments are always clamoring for more hires in both financially flush and sparse times.
"At the present time, given the economic conditions, I don't know what a university can do," Witt lamented. "Obviously, there's never enough faculty."
Kelly Rohrs contributed to this story.
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.