Regents deny zero funding statements
Iowa City Press Citizen, IA
10-11-06
UI faculty, staff discomforted by developments
By Brian Morelli
Iowa City Press-Citizen
Some University of Iowa faculty and staff are puzzled by statements attributed to
Iowa state Board of Regents officials that UI should plan as though it would
receive zero funding from the Legislature in the next five to 10 years.
They say they are even more puzzled that the regents -- President Michael
Gartner and President Pro Tem Teresa Wahlert -- deny saying them.
The statements came to light in a document presented to the UI Faculty Council
last week during a discussion about strategic planning meetings involving
Gartner and Wahlert and the presidents of UI, Iowa State University and the
University of Northern Iowa. Gartner has said they are in the process of gathering
information to be used in forming assumptions for strategic planning purposes.
The Faculty Council stifled, at least temporarily, a resolution to request those
meetings be postponed until interim UI president Gary Fethke is replaced by a
permanent president. The resolution identifies the group as being in the midst of
creating a sweeping blueprint that could lead to fundamental changes at UI.
The planning meetings, the talk about zero funding, and the subsequent denials
by Gartner and Wahlert, have created some discomfort among faculty and staff.
"Statements like that are very scary. I remember hearing it at the time. I
remember Gartner saying it," Staff Council President Mary Greer said. "If
somebody like the regents said that, there is feeling of truth to it."
Greer, Katherine Tachau, UI history professor and former Faculty Council
president, Peter McElligot, UI student president, and Shelly Kurtz, current Faculty
Council president, recall hearing Gartner make the assertion at the Regent's
office in Des Moines before March's Board of Regents meeting.
Wahlert was at that meeting as well, but she denied Gartner said it. Gartner
denied the claim in an earlier phone interview with the Press-Citizen. He did not
return phone messages Tuesday.
"Everything that we say can be misconstrued. It depends on what kind of motive
you have," Wahlert said Tuesday in a phone interview.
A memo, which was presented to the Faculty Council, from John Westefeld,
chairman of the UI Committee on Selection of Central Academic Officials, and
committee member Steve Collins was sent to Kurtz two days after an April
meeting between Westefeld, Collins, three other committee members and
Wahlert.
"In (Wahlert's) view, our plans for the future should be based on the assumption
that the UI would get zero state funding," the memo said. "She is not talking
about zero increases in state funding, but no state funding at all. It was hard to
believe that she was serious about this, but when questioned on this point, she
stuck to her position that this should be the starting assumption."
"I do not think this will happen," Collins said in a phone interview this week.
"What regent Wahlert intended to convey in her remark is unclear to me."
Wahlert denied making the statement.
"I never said that, and I am tired of being asked about it," Wahlert said. "I don't
think any of this conversation is going to lead to anything constructive."
Many people don't expect that UI will, in fact, receive zero funding. Nor do they
think that Wahlert or Gartner are suggesting it. They even understand the logic in
taking such considerations into account -- but they don't understand the denial.
"I am puzzled by them," Kurtz said.
Regent Amir Arbisser of Davenport said considering the possibility of zero
funding in the future is a "normal intellectual question."
"I think that the concept is that, as a governing board, it is our responsibility to be
prepared for all contingencies," Arbisser said. "Our worst concern is that the state
budget dries up.
"We need to think about how the state universities can continue."
Arbisser also said gathering information and meeting with school presidents is
appropriate for the regents, but he noted that the current process with Wahlert,
Gartner and the three presidents has not received any input from the other board
members.
"This is a process that represents the board's leaders' (Wahlert and Gartner)
inquiry," Arbisser said.