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California State University, Long Beach
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Academic Affairs Budget Update

Release date: 10-06-09

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n light of the current and anticipated budget realities, Vice President of Administration and Finance Mary Stephens, Interim Provost Don Para and Vice Provost Dave Dowell have been giving presentations to campus groups describing our 2009-10 budget situation and the outlook for 2010-11. That presentation can be found on CSULB Budget Central. Any campus group may request a presentation via e-mail.

The outlook for 2010-11 is challenging to say the least. As a result, the campus is launching budget planning earlier than usual and the campus Resource Planning Process (budget) committee began meeting last week – four months earlier than usual.

Academic Affairs is already actively engaged in planning. The deans have begun regular meetings with Academic Affairs staff to discuss 2010-11 enrollment and budget reduction strategies. Each college dean has been asked to organize discussions for respective chairs, faculty and staff to share information and to provide opportunities for input.

The October 23 Academic Senate retreat, "Challenges & Choices: Shaping our Future," will focus on planning for 2010-11 and the Senate Executive Committee is actively planning that event. Ideas collected at that event will be carefully reviewed by university leadership.

Academic Affairs’ budget planning is mindful of some key differences among academic programs, academic infrastructure, and other centers, programs, and units; these are described in the Budget Central presentation. Academic Affairs' budget planning is also mindful of some key principles of good planning:

  • Mission: Focus resources on core mission; not micro issues,
  • Honesty: Facing possibilities realistically,
  • Transparency: Sharing full information with the campus,
  • Participation: Soliciting broad input from across the campus,
  • Focus: Focus work on major budget solutions; avoid distractions,
  • Teamwork: Unite people; don’t encourage divisiveness,
  • Morale: Remember that institutional effectiveness depends upon people and collaborative solutions,
  • Future: Remember that the campus will emerge from this and continue to pursue institutional excellence.

Academic Affairs will provide budget updates regularly in order to give faculty and staff in the division a clear idea of the status of academic planning. These messages will be posted on Academic Affairs’ Planning and Budget Web site.

This year, the campus faced a very challenging budget, but thanks to a focused and cooperative effort from many people, managed to have a reasonably normal opening of the fall semester. We continue to be impressed by the significant achievements of our faculty and students.

There are reasons for hope. There are recent signs that the state economy may be improving. Although it may take some time for improvements to translate into funding for the CSU, the campus will eventually move past this fiscal storm and continue to fulfill our mission for the citizens of the State of California with excellence.


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