Missing from the Institute-Wide Planning Task Force Report: Cuts to the Administration
On Sept. 21, I attended the second forum for the Planning Task Force. While I am not against everything in the Task Force Report, it is appalling that the report has sections on cutting down the very nature and purpose of the Institute — academics and research — without any clear and specific attempt at cutting down the costs of having a workforce larger than the student body. At the forum, I mentioned that the Task Force report did not include a section specifically reducing the administration and its overhead. However, it does have a section on reducing academic costs and another section on reducing research costs. In the research section, it even goes so far as to suggest cutting the graduate student population (in other words, the main researchers) by up to 1,000 students. I received no answer to my comments from any Task Force member or any other administrator at the Forum; only repeated information or attempts to “correct” my statement.