The Facts: Last year, the Governor’s budget announced a 15.1 percent cut to the UNC system, with N.C . State suffering a 16 percent cut to its budget. Only 7 percent of that has been taken out of academics.

Our Opinion: The chancellor took the right course of action by allowing individual colleges to handle the academic cuts; however, we should remain wary of whatever is to come. 

After the Governor’s budget message last year, N.C . State has dealt with the 15.1 percent budget cut very effectively. In a public message, Chancellor Woodson said, “It’s not an overstatement to say that this is the most difficult budget challenge the state of North Carolina and the University has faced since the Great Depression.” In response to the cuts, the chancellor handed off responsibility for the necessary decisions to the deans of each college, which only positively affected this volatile situation.

Students and faculty feared the impact the 16 percent budget cuts would have on the University. Chancellor Woodson met these oncoming budget cuts by passing them off to the provost, who absorbed 8 percent of the cuts by only passing down 7 percent to academics. The deans of the various colleges at the University dealt with these cuts by doing what they thought would least impact students.

By eliminating vacated positions in order to allot the money thereby saved for other resources, these strategies of cutting back have aided N.C . State in their decisions about the budget. The colleges have used this as an opportunity to consolidate redundancy within the colleges, which eliminates some resources for students and researches, while merely conserving others.

Now that these decisions have been made, the next step should be to look towards the future. The ways in which the colleges dealt with these cuts demonstrated the “strong leadership,” Nate DeGraff  noted in Monday’s edition of Technician. Many students might be feeling the impact of the cuts due to the consolidation of resources and classes within the colleges; however, the significance of these actions has also protected some resources for students.

The main efforts of the deans have been to shift faculty responsibilities and to eliminate open positions. These efforts have the least negative impact on the student body as a whole. By leaving an opportunity for the deans, who are inevitably closer to their students than the chancellor, the cuts would be handled in the most beneficial way possible for students. 

The ways these cuts are being handled should be remembered, as the state will most likely reduce the budget again for this upcoming school year. This process should prep our colleges for what is yet to come.

The chancellor and the deans of the colleges are to be commended for their actions; however, no one can predict the outcome of the next budget meeting at the state or University level. While it is important we embrace what has already been done, we should be cautious of what is coming, and hope our deans will provide the same sufficient actions when it does.