To make accurate recommendations about challenges facing Syracuse University, some faculty senators are calling on the school’s administration to give them access to information they’ve had in the past.

“We can guess as well as anyone else, but after a while it’s just hearsay and speculation,” said Craig Dudczak, chair of the University Senate Committee on Budget and Fiscal Affairs. “And I think that we’ve had very warm and respectful relationships in the past several years — certainly in the time that I’ve served on the committee — and we need to continue to have those relationships going forward.”

Issues about access to information and transparency were brought up several times when the budget committee presented its report to the University Senate on Wednesday afternoon. The committee’s 12-page, 5,127-word report focused on three areas of “continuing challenges” for the university moving forward: enrollment, SU’s budget model and how athletics fits into the school as a whole.

Enrollment

During former Chancellor Nancy Cantor’s tenure, enrollment “significantly increased,” according to the budget committee’s report. Numbers the administration previously provided put this increase at about 22 percent from 2004–12. The report states it appears that was done to compensate for declining rates of tuition increases as well as growing “discount rates.”

SU has looked to so-called “geographies of opportunity” such as the South and the West, as the admissions staff has said the number of students entering college will decline during the next decade, according to the report. International students, who Dudczak said made up 1-in-9 people in this year’s incoming freshman class, have also been heavily recruited. These students typically do not get much financial aid, which helps lower the cost of tuition for others, according to the report.

But the report states support services on campus have not kept up. The issue of inadequate resources for international students has been brought up repeatedly in the senate during the past several years.

These strategies have created a “bi-modal” distribution in socioeconomic classes at SU, according to the report.

“It is our concern we may have removed the university from the marketplace of the middle class as they shop for the best deal at the best price,” the report states.

Dudczak said during the presentation the committee believes undergraduate growth should be curtailed. He said the committee spent the most time this semester on enrollment because members thought it was probably the “central issue.”

SU’s budget model

The university’s budget model has become a “hybrid” decentralized and centralized system, according to the budget committee’s report.

The initial idea of the current model was to allow deans and directors of centers to make decisions about their budgets and reap the rewards or consequences, Dudczak said. But areas of the university are “taxed” and share common costs, and some places appear to have lost money, according to the report. It’s unclear, the report said, whether these apparent losses were the result of decisions from the administration or these different centers.

The current model is also difficult for the average person to understand, according to the report.

“We think that we need to get back to a simpler model, at least one that in its simplicity might be more revenue transparent to all members of the university community,” Dudczak said.

Athletics

SU needs to come up with a greater academic plan that states the role of athletics at the university, Dudczak said. Though athletics are generally appreciated at SU, the budget committee’s report states it is “uncomfortable” with the perception of how the department is managed and fits into the university’s mission.

The lack of transparency in athletics’ budget and how it fits into the rest of the budget process intensifies a “feeling” that athletics is drawing money from academic areas, according to the report.

This idea has come up in the past with the controversy surrounding how SU should allocate the $7.5 million Big East Conference exit fee. In the end, SU Athletics’ contribution toward “paying” the fee was upped to a minimum of 25 percent. The administration has said SU’s move to the Atlantic Coast Conference will benefit the schools and colleges $17 million during a 10-year period.

Athletics is a net expense to the university. The department receives $7.4 million from the so-called “subvention” revenue-sharing pool, Dudczak said. That means other programs are in effect subsidizing athletics, he said. But, he said, most Division I programs are not self-sustaining.

The committee wrote that it wonders if there’s an idea that athletics must “continue to get bigger to survive.” The report cites the move to the ACC and proposal for a new downtown Syracuse stadium.

Transparency

After the budget committee’s presentation, other senators raised concerns about transparency. They noted a report from Bain & Co. — a global management consulting firm analyzing key aspects of the university — has not been released yet. Neither has a report about faculty salaries, as well as how they compare to peer institutions.

“There’s an appearance that there are worries of erring on the side of too much transparency,” said Crystal Bartolovich, an associate professor of English.

When asked about the senate’s discussion about transparency, Chancellor Kent Syverud said he was still absorbing the comments made at the meeting, but will be responding to them in the future.

Published on April 17, 2014 at 2:09 am

Contact Dylan: dmsegelb@syr.edu | @dylan_segelbaum