During the Student Government meeting Wednesday, Chancellor Randy Woodson stopped by for an informal Q&A. Before the Senate had a chance to ask about the budget, Woodson was already on the topic.
“My time at N.C. State has been terrific so far. My wife and I have been welcomed with open arms,” Woodson said, when asked how he’s adjusting to life in Raleigh. “Now, it is a fiscally difficult environment, but [N.C. State] is not unusual. Every public institution in the country is in this situation.”
Woodson acknowledged the rumor that’s been spreading as the University looks to absorb campus-wide budget cuts that could reach 15 percent.
“Rumors are flying,” Woodson said. “The state of North Carolina has the sixth-largest budget deficit in the country. It’s a tense time and it’s natural that tensions will be high across campus.”
For now, the waiting is the hardest part. The University won’t know about its funding until the State General Assembly finishes its legislative session. The projected deadline for the General Assembly to finish is June 30, but Woodson said it could wrap up later than that.
“At this point nobody’s budget has been cut, but a lot of departments have been preparing for it, and preparing for it in a really serious way,” Woodson said.
Patrick Devore, a College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences senator and a senior in meteorology, asked Woodson if he foresaw another increase in student tuition akin to last year, when the University upped tuition by 19 percent – a day before the 2010 fall semester billing period began.
Woodson could not rule out another last-minute tuition hike this year, depending on the General Assembly’s progress during the legislative session.
“We’ve asked [the General Assembly] that it not happen again, but just to be perfectly candid that was a legislative issue that we could not control,” Woodson said of the summer tuition increase. “I’m hopeful that won’t happen but I cannot stand here and tell you it won’t.”
Justin Brooks, a College of Engineering senator and a senior in nuclear engineering, asked what impact the budget cuts might have on enrollment numbers and class sizes.
“We don’t anticipate that we will reach our [enrollment] capacity. In fact, we have been trying to keep class sizes smaller” in anticipation of budget cuts, said Provost Warwick Arden, who was also on hand for Woodson’s Q&A.
The budget cuts could allow for a recalibration of enrollment to better ensure smart growth at the University, according to Woodson.
“Limiting enrollment doesn’t mean we’re not growing, but our enrollment has grown a little too fast lately,” Woodson said.
The University has limited the size of the freshman class each of the last three years in order to better serve the students it does accept, Woodson said.
According to Arden, the undergraduate enrollment has increased by around 25 percent in the past decade, and graduate enrollment has gone up by 40 to 45 percent.
”We had reached the point of saturation [three years ago]: saturation with class size, with enrollment, with faculty,” Woodson said. “Being big without being high-quality is not good.”
Arden said that there’s no magic wand to wave and instantly reduce class sizes.
“There’s no panacea as an answer. We’re trying to protect seats and sections as best we can. But the deeper the budget cuts go, the more likely it will affect class size and class sections,” he said.
If the GA decides to cut less than 10 percent “we can buffer a lot of that,” Arden said. “But the closer the budget cut gets to 10 or 15 percent, the more of an impact you’ll see on seats and class sections.”
Woodson said that one way the University can better endure any future funding fallout is a steady growing of the endowment.
“I said from the day I got here that we have to grow our endowment. It helps to cushion students from [cuts] when we have a large endowment,” he said.