SMU to cut $35mm through layoffs etc

[couch 'em]

Kathy Hubbard?

[PhantomPhi]

Universities are focusing on the U.S. News and World Report ranking calculations. If you could get a point for putting koi in a fountain, you would see koi in a fountain.

[PonyFan]

When the support staff, which often is underpaid, gets cut, it's interesting to watch the higher-ups' priorities change. Those folks don't make a ton of money, but they're vital. Several people who have worked at SMU have told me they make less than their counterparts at other schools, and far less than some of their counterparts outside of education (which is not surprising).

[gostangs]

problem is there are too many of them. THey have a pretty low work load and pretty great hours - still a 1-1 ratio in many areas of the University. Just about any business has about 1 admin for 6 non admin these days.

[b_caesar]

problem is there are too many of them. THey have a pretty low work load and pretty great hours - still a 1-1 ratio in many areas of the University. Just about any business has about 1 admin for 6 non admin these days.

You must have some significantly broad knowledge of the entire university organizational structure to know so much about specific work loads and hours for all the admins on the SMU campus. I'm not aware of a single admin who exclusively supports just one person at SMU - unless perhaps that person is RGT or maybe Rick Hart, and even then I'd bet their duties extend well beyond those offices. I'll repeat what I said earlier - sure hope the "non admin" folks that you're referencing understand what's gonna be coming their way once everything shakes out - they had better not get their knickers in too tight a twist if they discover the only way to get a copy or reimbursed for travel is to learn how to do it themselves.

[tristatecoog]

how many athletics "admins" will be impacted vs. general university ones? the "admin" I know supports the whole academic department.

[couch 'em]

We went from everyone in Perkins Administration to Perkins, Blanton, and an office tower from 2001 to 2008 or so. Student body didn't get any bigger. Someone is not critical somewhere

[Grant Carter]

I think people are conflating the shorthand "admin" meaning anyone in an administrative role with the shorthand "admin" meaning administrative assistant. They are not going to be cutting $35 million by going after secretaries, to get to that type of a number you have to be talking about at least relatively senior people.


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[fifty]

Are they cutting 350 employees that make 100k? Do we have 350 employees? I guess maybe the football team does. As long as we keep randy ross though i'll be fine with it (/sarcasm off).

[smusic 00]

They are also clear that the 'cuts' are being diverted to academic support. So the budget isn't necessarily shrinking. Sounds like part of the plan to increase enrollment and degree offerings, especially at the graduate level (East Campus maybe).

[NewAgeMustange]

Hope everyone had a nice Christmas Holiday. I was talking with an ex-contractor of SMU over Christmas and he was telling me that a decent amount of employees had already received their "termination" letters in the form "Welcome to your new Insurance Plan" provided through Armark. He went on to state that the employees will keep their current jobs, yet instead of being employed by SMU they will be contracted through Armark for the same position, just loss of some benefits. Chief among them being the children education at SMU. It seemed that if your kid was at least a junior and you had met the required work experience they can still keep the benefit, but if you kid was a sophomore it wasn't going to be honored (High school Junior, kids in college will be kept as is).

Has anyone heard anything related to this?

[smusic 00]

Sounds like an easy way to cut and divert expenditures, but a bummer for anyone counting on those benefits.

[Terry Webster]

This same thing happened at UC a few years back with the bookstore and other departments as it was sold to an outside group. Employees kept their jobs but lost pretty much all of their benefits, including kids educational benefits.

[bubba pony]

cost to attend SMU is $64840/year. that is take home pay value, so someone might have to gross $100,000 a year to clear $64840. times 4 years.

http://www.smu.edu/Admission/FinancialAid/Costs

so those that worked at low salary had one heck of a perk if they were working to get a free education for their kids.

My wife is a principal in a very good school district and they have done away with free education (non resident of the school district) teacher's kids as well.

[couch 'em]

What do our peer institutions do? I know at Tulane this perk still exists and Tulane partners with dozens of other privates so an employee's kid can attend any of those partner schools for free.