In December, The Appalachian spoke with the deans of three Appalachian State University colleges: the College of Arts and Sciences, the College of Fine and Applied Arts and University College.

The deans spoke about their efforts to rein in spending in the face of unprecedented university-wide budget cuts.

Now, the deans of the Reich College of Education and the Walker College of Business have weighed in as well.

Reich College of Education

Dean Charles Duke said the College of Education has had to make a 30 to 40 percent cut to its operating budget.

“The biggest impact for us has been two-fold: one is not to be able to fill existing faculty slots and the other is that the professional development activities for our young faculty have been severely curtailed,” Duke said.

For the most part, the cuts have eliminated any opportunity to support faculty professional travel, which the college has done quite regularly in the past, Duke said.

Additionally, the college scaled back its field experience office and reduced the number of visits faculty can make for observation of student teachers from five to three.

“We are not at all pleased with that,” Duke said. “We believe that the five visits are very important and that doesn’t mean to suggest that if a student needs assistance then we’re not going to help. But, as a general rule, we’re down to three visits.”

Most of the remaining budget covers administrative costs like phone bills, copying and paper, Duke said.

While the college has not lost any faculty positions, it has not been able to fill seven that are vacant as a result of retirement, reassignment and faculty taking other positions.

“We’re adamant about providing quality instruction and to do that we need qualified people,” Duke said. “Ideally, those qualified people would be full-time faculty. That’s not to say that those people don’t do a good job, but it’s the continuity that’s a problem.”

The college has found ways to temporarily fill positions so classes can be offered. It continues to seek donor assistance and stay active in grant writing.

In essence, the college is doing more with less, Duke said.

“I think the issue is how long this will last,” Duke said. “I think if it stretches over a number of years, there will be concerns about retaining faculty.”

Walker College of Business

Due to budget cuts, the College of Business has cut its operating budget approximately 35 percent - losing everything except personnel salaries, Associate Dean Heather Norris said.

The cuts have affected the college’s ability to expand programs and have put strategic initiatives on hold, Norris said.

Some of the donations received through the Dean’s Club, which normally fund scholarships, are now being used to subsidize some of the areas that have been cut, Edwards said.

In addition to depleted scholarship funds, Edwards said students in the college are suffering from closed sections and are seeing an increase in the number of class seats.

The college also lost two lecture positions this year - one in economics and one in accounting. Those two areas have a relatively large number of required courses for business majors and minors, Edwards said.

But the college does not have the money to hire the faculty for those positions, which makes maintaining the number of seats difficult, Edwards said.

“We support the university’s plan and certainly Chancellor Peacock’s plan, which is to try to maintain as many seats in classrooms as possible, and that’s what we’ve been trying to do,” Edwards said.

Because the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business accredits the college, the faculty is required to publish papers and peer review journal publications. Traveling to professional meetings to present research and get feedback is part of this process.

But due to budget cuts, the college has had to cut back on travel expenses.

The college is also facing the inability to repair Raley Hall’s roof, which leaks when it rains.

“Literally every time it rains, we have leaks,” Edwards said. “We have a couple of big trash cans catching water, and then out in the stairwells, it’s a safety issue where water is dripping.”

The university has temporarily patched the roof while it waits for funds, Edwards said.

“The cuts have been coming for several years now, so cuts over several years probably hurt morale for faculty and staff and the difficulty is knowing when it will end,” he said.

Story and Photo: KELLI STRAKA, Senior News Reporter