As anybody with an ear to hear knows, the current budget shortfall and the various suggestions as to how to fix it are highly sensitive and controversial topics. And even though some general projects have just recently been announced, the details have yet to be worked out. Everyone has an opinion about how to implement and tweak the administration's overall plan, and usually their opinion is a strong one. But Dartmouth needs to face the facts squarely: we do not have enough money to fund everything anymore.
Even though everyone seems to recognize this truth in the abstract, as soon as students or the administration suggest a place where money could be saved, some section of the College voices outrage. I am incredibly frustrated at what seems to be a pervasive disconnect between people's professed understanding that some cuts need to be made and the outrage that gets expressed at every suggestion.
My point is that the campus needs to get realistic. I appreciate that every aspect of Dartmouth seems vital to someone, but it is now impossible for every aspect of Dartmouth before budget cuts to remain. We can't give the budget crisis lip service; we need to cut money from somewhere. Things which people think are vital are going to have to be cut and several people's "Dartmouth Experiences" are going to be negatively affected. Nothing can change that besides a miraculous financial windfall.
And I think the campus should stop demonizing the administration and others working on this problem. College President Jim Yong Kim and his team did not create the national (even international) financial crisis. They did not create the budget shortfall. They are, however, stuck with trying to find a solution to the deficit, and it doesn't help when people continually give the administration flak for trying to do its job. I'm willing to bet that as Kim continues to lay out more of his plan, as he has just begun to do this week, for every single proposed cut there will be a corresponding person (or a group of people) who will express outrage. There will be candlelight vigils and angry articles galore, just because the administration is doing what it must to keep the College financially afloat.
Despite the melodramatic response that will inevitably follow, the administration had to make a broad plan. And as unfortunate as the effects of the budget crisis will be for some people, Dartmouth should look at it in the best light possible. If nothing else, because it is forcing us to pare down spending, it gives us the chance to determine which areas of spending are really the most important, and which are secondary.
In other words, it gives us a chance to reevaluate Dartmouth's mission and purposes. If we decide that an essential part of Dartmouth's mission is to hire lots and lots of people, that's fine. But then other things are going to have to be cut. If we decide that funding Sexfest and giving out free condoms is really an intrinsic part of the Dartmouth's existence, so be it, but we'll have to offset that spending (which, though comparatively small by itself, adds up) somewhere else.
Personally, I think Dartmouth's mission is first and foremost to educate people by offering quality classes taught by good professors. That's what the College exists to do. Everything else is truly secondary to that main purpose. Those basics, however, are the place to start they must not be messed with. Dartmouth already has a hard time attracting and keeping good professors. I am glad therefore that the recently revealed cuts do not touch professor's salaries, as some had previously proposed. However, the cuts to faculty benefits are a cause for concern, since they could potentially be as bad for faculty retention as salary cuts. That particular decision may have to be reconsidered in the light of Dartmouth's pre-existing faculty attrition rate.
Once we have set aside that essential part of the budget, however, then we can start worrying about other things. We should as a community figure out what, inside these individual budget areas, are the most important to keep. We should undertake this effort, though, with a realistic and mature attitude, acknowledging from the beginning that the budget shortfall has made it impossible to keep everything and please everybody.
