Undergraduate Academic Affairs
Draft Budget Reduction Plan for 2009-10
Submitted by Dean Ed Taylor, February 17, 2009
The University of Washington considers excellence in undergraduate education central to its mission. In
meeting this responsibility, Undergraduate Academic Affairs (UAA) is charged with enhancing the
quality and value of the undergraduate experience for students. Our mission -- to shape, advance and
steward a world-class undergraduate academic experience for students -- is achieved by embracing the
diversity of our students, faculty and departments, and directing our resources to the totality of the
undergraduate educational experience.
In this document we will state our commitments, outline our highest priorities for the next 3-5 years, then
outline our plan for reducing our budget while still advancing our highest priority work. Our
commitments include:
• Connecting undergraduates with opportunities to participate in research with faculty, engage in
community-based learning and leadership opportunities and compete for local, national, and
international scholarships, as part of a cutting edge UW undergraduate education.
• Providing premier academic advising services to help students, especially pre-majors, develop
and implement their academic plans and navigate their way to the major.
• Orienting freshmen and transfer students to the UW through peer-facilitated programs, to ensure
they are best prepared to take advantage of educational opportunities.
• Providing the best environment for teaching and learning through classroom technology
enhancement and innovative planning for all general assignment classrooms and other learning
spaces on the Seattle campus.
• Providing assessment of learning outcomes, program evaluation, and survey research for UW and
external agencies, and leading state-wide policy efforts to best coordinate assessment initiatives
across institutions.
• Advancing the University’s teaching mission by providing programs for faculty to enhance their
teaching, in order to invigorate student learning.
• Providing a rigorous curriculum for honors students, paying particular attention during
recruitment to increasing access and diversity in this program, and preparing these students as
they compete with other top undergraduates across the nation for graduate school and national
awards.
• Providing a gateway through which some highly talented students in the region can enter the UW
earlier than traditional freshman age, and have their academic needs met and supported in a
university environment.
Highest Priorities
Over the next three to five years, Undergraduate Academic Affairs will work to ensure that its highest
priority programs continue to provide exceptional opportunities for UW students and faculty. UAA will:
1. Reinforce and support programs at the core of the UW undergraduate academic experience.
Ensure access to experiential learning opportunities such as undergraduate research, community-
based learning, and global learning, because students count these as among their most profound
learning experiences, and participation provides a very close connection with faculty and other
mentors and prepares them for competitive employment and further study.
2. Enhance the core mission of learning and discovery for undergraduates, and ensure that they
make academic progress. Particularly in times of declining resources and tightened access to
courses, it is essential that we create learning goals for the first and second year curriculum (in
particular Freshman Interest Groups, Freshman Seminars and Sophomore Seminars); be efficient
about providing support for writing across the curriculum; and work collaboratively with other
units to ensure that students receive the best advising services for making the most of their
undergraduate academic career.
3. Ensure we are providing our faculty with the best programs and support to improve and develop
innovations in their teaching. To reduce costs, increase efficiencies of these programs, and
implement innovations with proven results for increased student learning, a consortium is being
developed in collaboration and coordination with the Graduate School and UW Libraries.
4. Maintain our core commitment to sustaining excellence in learning environments, including
general use classrooms. We will make budgetary choices by balancing the need to maintain our
investment in the physical facility with the operational staffing necessary to do business.
Budget Reduction Targets & Impacts
Current economic pressures require UAA to assess its goals with a heightened awareness of budgetary
requirements and focus targets on achievable, cost effective and sustainable budget reductions, projected
at the 8%, 10% and 12% levels. These reductions do not diminish our fundamental vision or mission; and
while they necessarily will result in reduction of some services, they represent an opportunity for our unit
to focus on quality, access, and affordability.
A budget cut of 8–12% would reduce UAA funding by $543,921 to $815,882 per year. These cuts will
be differential across our units, and were developed via a collaborative process within UAA aimed at
preserving our most cost effective, highly utilized and student centered programs. The following action
plans are in draft form only.
In addition to severe reductions to operations budgets, staff reduction plans include:
1. Elimination of vacant positions totaling 1.0 FTE.
2. Layoffs and FTE Reduction (of 3.7 FTE), impacting up to 7 individuals.
3. Voluntary Reduction of 1.35 FTE, impacting up to 5 individuals.
4. Elimination of 14-20 quarters of graduate student staff support.
5. Elimination of 22-31 individual undergraduate student employees.
Direct impact
While we hope that our ongoing efforts in re-organization, cross-training, and team work will mean a
continued high level of service, the loss of staff -- classified, professional and student employees -- will
result in challenges for providing core services to units across our campus. Depending on the percentage,
proposed budget cuts will result in some combination of the following impacts:
Undergraduate Academic Affairs, February 17, 2009, page 2
• Fewer pre-major advisers, which will reduce one-on-one student/adviser contact and reduce our
ability to provide other types of innovative advising services.
• Reduced advising support for prospective transfer students at community colleges.
• Reduction in the number of Teaching Assistants provided to schools and colleges.
• Elimination of numerous Honors seminars and scaled back student community-based activities.
• Reduced funding for departmental Writing Centers.
• Increased time repairing and replacing classroom equipment/technology.
• Reduced calls to classrooms for preventive maintenance and delivery of supplies.
• Reduction in the installation of new technology equipment.
• Loss of ability to provide full complement of assessment activities that improve teaching and
learning.
• Elimination of surveys of alumni 5 & 10 years out, used by academic departments for
accreditation review.
• Elimination of funding to participate in the National Survey of Student Engagement (Seattle
campus.)
• Elimination of the Martin Luther King Day of Service (which we would want to continue if
additional resources were available from other sources.)
• Elimination of up to 5 core courses offered to Honors students. Larger class size and loss of
outstanding faculty to teach Honors courses.
• Elimination of some or all courses for students involved in K-12 tutoring and teacher preparation,
community-based learning, and research & scholarship, impacting 150-400 students per year.
• Assistance to hundreds of students seeking internships and national/international scholarships.
• Elimination of off-site Orientation sessions and scaling back new student welcome activities.
Layoffs and FTE reductions to positions will have an impact on our work, understandably, but we believe
these will not undermine core UAA operations. However, an overarching value of UAA is that we
employ a large number of students, both undergraduates and graduates. These employment opportunities
are extraordinary experiences for students. These students are the very best ambassadors for our
programs, connect with their audiences whether running workshops, troubleshooting classroom
equipment malfunctions, providing preventive maintenance, responding to telephone or in-person
inquiries about our programs, and especially providing outreach to peers. Many of our cuts will affect
our ability to employ these students.
What we have done to minimize negative impacts
We are very mindful of our at-large mission and recognize that any cuts in direct services or in funding
for teaching assistants in other departments will affect units across the Seattle campus. We have been
deliberate in choosing cuts that minimize costs to other units. We have substantially reduced financial
support for travel; we have instituted on-line applications, more web-based resources for large programs
for students, and a series of other efforts designed to cut costs through reduced use of paper; and we will
use carryover temporary funds to postpone some layoffs for one to two years.
Carryover Reserves and Gift Fund Balances
$1.4 million in GOF/DOF carryover funds were available to UAA units at the beginning of the 2007-09
biennium. Of these funds, 45% was dedicated by ATAC for the purchase of classroom equipment, 18%
was targeted for new advising initiatives and 10% was used for assessment and learning initiatives. UAA
anticipates greatly reduced carryover funds at the end of this biennium. These funds will be used to
Undergraduate Academic Affairs, February 17, 2009, page 3
mitigate revenue shortfall in UAA’s self-sustaining service areas, shore up support for our Experiential
Learning programs, provide support for new advising initiatives, and replace obsolete computer
equipment. Continuation of central funding by the University for departmental equipment purchases is
essential. UAA unit budgets will have insufficient operations funds to cover the cost of replacement
equipment after 2009-10. The University also will need to continue to allocate funds to replace general
use classroom equipment.
Gift account balances for UAA units totaled $1.3 million as of January 1, 2009, of which 52% was gift
funds for Mary Gates Hall classroom equipment. A major upgrade of classroom computing equipment in
Mary Gates Hall during 2008-09 will mostly deplete this resource. Remaining gift funds primarily
provide student support; even many accounts that are categorized as unrestricted have a dedicated purpose
toward specific student activities. Endowment gift fund balances will continue to support University
Honors, Robinson Center for Young Scholars and the Mary Gates Endowment for Students scholarships
and awards.
Undergraduate Academic Affairs, February 17, 2009, page 4