Budget cuts not over yet

Neal Smatresk's message Tuesday to UNLV, the campus he has led for five weeks: The budget cuts are not yet over, so get ready for more.

"We're past the point where we can just kind of ignore the problem and just wish it away," Smatresk said in the University of Nevada, Las Vegas' annual State of the University address.

He was talking about the single preoccupying topic of discussion on the state's college and university campuses for more than a year now. The state Legislature, responding to the down economy and an ensuing dire dropoff in tax revenue, cut the overall higher education budget by 12 percent over the next two years. UNLV takes a 15 percent hit in state funding.

"I don't think any of us still believe we are looking at a two-year shortfall," said Smatresk, who served as provost for two years before becoming president last month. "We're going to have to work together to weather the next biennium. We're expecting this to be a four-year situation."

He said 100 faculty positions remain open, as do 250 support staff jobs. Much of the administrative staff has been shuffled, and the university has a review of programs from top to bottom to see which might be eliminated to save money.

"You can't lose 10 percent of your faculty and still expect to run the same institution," he said.

Speaking without notes or a teleprompter and roaming the stage with a microphone clipped to his face, the president, however, said the university remained committed to two main principles: basic education and research.

"We are steadfast in our commitment to our educational mission. Students are our wards and our calling," he said.

"I want to assure all of you we will never back away from our research mission."

He said the way the state's higher education institutions are funded needs fixing. Institutions are funded largely by how many students they've signed up.

But UNLV and UNR are supposed to be research universities, focusing on graduate and specialty education, such as nurses and engineers. The community colleges and Nevada State College would pick up a large portion of general undergraduate students.

Smatresk said it is more than twice as expensive to educate a nursing student as it is a liberal arts student. The effect, he said, is that to recruit one nursing student you need to recruit two liberal arts students just so you can pay the bills.

He proposed charging some students more than others as one possible solution.

"People seem to believe that we can produce Mercedes on a Yugo budget," he said.

He went on to detail what has been accomplished at UNLV -- with the recruiting of the Brookings Institution as a highlight -- and what is to come in the future, such as a new student e-mail system.

He ended by reiterating UNLV's research mission, asking for feedback and trying to spark a little bit of optimism.

"Sometimes," he said, "hard times trigger metamorphoses and the production of something amazing."

Contact reporter Richard Lake at rlake@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0307.