Since earlier this week, when the U.S. economic conditions were defined as a “recession,” Creighton has been buzzing even more with talk of cutbacks.

However, Creighton administrators assure faculty and students that budget constraints will not affect classes students need to graduate or faculty employment.

From the hiring freeze to faculty Christmas parties being cut, university officials and individual departments are looking for ways to economize.

Patrick Borchers, vice president of Academic Affairs, assured faculty members that jobs would not be cut.

“I can understand why people are anxious,” he said. “I’m anxious, too. But we’ll get through this and hopefully come out stronger on the other side.”

How this happened

Borchers said the anxiety about next year’s budget comes from two main areas.

One: “The turndown in the economy is causing us to be cautious in enrollment predictions,” said Borchers, who fills a seat on the budget committee.

This fall, freshman enrollment was at 985. Realistically, Borchers said the freshman class next fall will be between 925 and 950. But enrollment isn’t the only cause for stress.

Because of the national economic concerns, tuition will see a smaller hike than in past years. That, coupled with lower enrollment, means the revenue coming directly from tuition would be cause for concern, he said.

The second factor is the revenue coming from the Health Sciences clinics throughout town.

“There is a competitive environment for health care services, and the revenues from the Creighton clinics is not what we’d hoped it would be,” he said.

He said the clinics were budgeted to bring in much more of a profit than they actually did, and the effects have begun to ripple throughout campus.

“If one part of an organism is under stress, the whole thing needs to work it out,” he said.

What this means to students

On the bright side, because the economy is suffering, Creighton administrators are committed to keeping the tuition hike for next fall low.

“Annually, Creighton operates on a budget of around $300 million,” Borchers said. “If you get a couple of percentage points off, everything gets out of whack. Because of our conservative tuition increase, we will have to maximize revenue in other areas.”

When it comes to actually cutting the budget, he said it will not affect student graduation.

Robert Lueger, dean of the College of Arts & Sciences, has met with the chairs of the departments in the college to talk about cutting back on expenses. Each chair was asked to develop a plan. When discussing the issue, Lueger said he asked each chair what was most important.

“The resounding answer around the room was ‘the students,'” Lueger said. “We need to provide an education that students need, in our Creighton University way, meaning small class sizes and individual attention.”

The other non-negotiables were faculty scholarship, Ignatian tradition and community. “We need to keep those goals in mind, and that gives us a good sense of direction,” he said.

The challenge is to work with the funds. As costs of supplies go up, departments’ budgets will not grow. He said they will have to find ways to make up for it, for instance, by cutting down on travel expenses or looking at either cutting low enrollment classes if they can’t recruit more students.

Core review

Mike Cherney, physics professor and president of the Faculty Senate, said that when there is talk of budget cuts, some people suggest changes to the core curriculum for financial reasons.

“We don’t want to make any changes to the core for economic reasons,” Cherney said. “I want to squelch that conversation before it would even start.”

He said the core review process was initiated before there were any budget concerns. Instead, this academic year he is looking at what the core curriculum is meant to do, and if it is working for students. He said it’s important to look at who teaches core classes, often part-time professors.

“People think they can cut the part-time faculty budget by eliminating core requirements,” he said. “The budget committee is never the place to discuss core revision.”