The College will make 30 to 35 fewer courses available each year by not offering classes normally taught by professors currently on sabbatical, Dean of the Faculty Carol Folt said in an interview. Such courses are usually taught every other year or discontinued, Folt said.
The restructuring of DDS will entail the closing of Cafe North.
Food operations at the Skiway will also be discontinued, and the Courtyard Cafe will not be open during the Summer term, Dean of Residential Life Martin Redman said in a budget forum on Tuesday.
Academics
Folt said individual departments will "look at their own curricular needs and see if they [have] an opportunity to reduce one or two courses" to implement the cuts.
Departments will avoid discontinuing courses that have high enrollment or are required for graduation.
Although it is more difficult for popular departments to cut courses, Folt said, smaller departments will not be targeted more than larger departments.
The history department will eliminate two courses from its currently alloted 80, department chair Margaret Darrow said.
Darrow said she does not believe this reduction will significantly affect students, but added that she would be concerned if the department were asked to cut any more courses.
The department will also be unable to hire a previously approved administrative assistant, she said.
"We didn't have that help before, so it's a loss of something hoped for rather than taking away something we had," Darrow said.
Most of the campus-wide changes involve postponing expansions of existing programs, rather than eliminating current offerings, Folt said.
"Our biggest cuts are in things we were aspiring to do or getting ready to do," Folt said.
The history department expects an eight to 12 percent reduction in its operating budget, the fund which provides day-to-day expenditures, Darrow said.
History faculty members have not been primarily concerned about the department's over-all operating budget, but instead on the fairness of the cuts, Darrow said.
"We were actually pleased to see there is going to be a salary freeze," Darrow said. "Faculty in several meetings in the fall said, 'If they are going to be cutting staff, we can't have any raises -- it's just not fair.'"
Despite the postponement of some faculty searches, the College will continue to hire professors and will fill two-thirds of the open faculty positions, Folt said.
Past efforts to increase the size of the faculty and to match salaries offered by peer institutions have put Dartmouth in a good position, she said.
"It gives us a great opportunity to continue to bring new faculty to campus," she said. "That's also important from a student perspective, because if we weren't hiring, then those would be courses that weren't being filled, so we're still planning to fill those courses with tenured faculty."
STAFF
John Gratiot, associate vice president of Facilities Operations and Management, said FO&M will strive to maintain high levels of service with reduced funds.
Gratiot has met with most of his 325 staff members and said the overall sentiment among them was relief, as many "were afraid [the cuts] might have been worse."
"They understand the challenges the College faces," Gratiot said. "They don't like it anymore than anybody else does, but they recognize the challenges we're up against."
Gratiot declined to disclose the decrease in FO&M's budget, but said that the number is "a sizable one" and that the cuts are "spread across the board."
He said he will spend the next week and a half meeting individually with employees to solicit suggestions for increasing productivity.
"In this kind of organization, it's the people doing the work that know hidden surprises -- the hidden gems in the corners -- that us in upper management don't see," Gratiot said.
Gratiot added that institutions can benefit from difficult times, which force them to become more effective and efficient in their service.
"Are we going to weather this storm? Absolutely," he said. "You aren't an enduring institution if you can't survive a thing like this."
Sky Leonard, a temporary College employee, said DDS staff members have been discussing the cuts since late January, when the administration released letters informing employees that layoffs should be expected.
Several DDS employees, Leonard said, have been notified that they will be laid off, including one nine-month employee he said he knows personally.
"She has another part-time job she can go back to full-time, but it does not pay as much money and doesn't offer the same benefits," Leonard said.
Earl Sweet, president of the Service Employees International Union Local 560, said the cuts are "turning everybody's life upside-down here."
He added that the union is investigating the new budget provisions and considering how fair they are to employees. Sweet said the changes will affect employees as they "bid" for positions within DDS.
"Nobody's being laid off, per se," he said. "It's like musical chairs: after the music stops, you're going to run out [of positions] for some of them."
Although there were reports of an incident in the First-Year Office on Monday, Dean of the College Tom Crady and First-Year Office staff members declined to comment when asked if the incident was related to layoffs.
Crady said he was unaware whether a layoff-related incident had occurred.
"It's just not anything we would discuss, as a matter of policy. There's quite a number of people affected here, and so what I try to always do is respect the rights of people involved," Crady said. "Any cuts that were made were related to the fact that we had to cut positions, not based on performance. I can't talk about any one person specifically."
STUDENT LIFE
College officials confirmed in the budget forum on Tuesday that core elements of student services will not be noticeably affected by the budget plan.
For example, cuts to services provided by the Office of Pluralism and Leadership, which was ranked low in a recent Student Assembly budget survey, will take place behind the scenes, OPAL director Sylvia Spears said at the forum.
"Our goal is to minimize impact to [students] and still continue to provide quality services to the campus," Spears said.
Crady emphasized OPAL's importance, and assured audience members that no OPAL employees will be let go.
"I don't think OPAL needs to justify its existence," Crady said.
Varsity athletics will also not see any major cuts, College officials said.
The number of teams Dartmouth fields will not be reduced, Athletics Director Josie Harper said in a previous interview.
Wright, at the forum, said he did not believe cutting a team should be a budget-driven process, citing the controversy following the 2002 decision to cut the swim team, which was later reinstated.
"You're saying to some subset of students that the work you do for your team is not as useful as other teams," Wright said.
The athletic department has taken measures to reduce expenses, Crady said.
