College of Agriculture loses 18 staff, sells local research farm

The College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences is forced to sell its 522-acre Plant Sciences research farm located in Oconee County as a result of budget cuts. Photo by AJ REYNOLDS

For the University’s College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, downsizing is nothing new.

But after the announced budget reductions for fiscal year 2012, it’s getting old.

“With the most recent cuts, we simply didn’t have anyone left to retire or move from state funds to contractual funds,” said Scott Angle, CAES dean. “We’ve done all that in the past. We had no more rabbits to pull out of the hat this time around to try to save jobs.”

As a result, Angle was forced to lay off 18 CAES staff and put up a large research farm for sale. Since the beginning of FY09, the college has lost more than $21.7 million and 355 positions. And though no faculty was laid off as a result of budget reductions, faculty hiring initiatives were also postponed. The University’s full-time professorial faculty declined nearly 5 percent while its enrollment grew more than 7 percent, according to the University’s FY12 budget narrative. A comparison of full-time CAES faculty members from 2007 to 2010 shows a decrease of at least 10, with the downsizing in nearly every department.

“Our guidelines were that we could only lay off staff,” Angle said. “All those 18 who got letters were all staff – some clerical, some technical.”

The cuts are more detrimental on the “B” unit of the budget – which supports cooperative extension and outreach in the state. The “A” unit is the resident instructional portion of the budget – the component which supports the undergraduate academic mission. Tuition and fees helped to offset the budget cuts of the “A” unit.

“Students are first,” Angle said. “We’ve tried to protect the teaching experience. I would hope most of our students would say they haven’t seen any effect from these budget cuts.”

However, with less funding, more students and not hiring new professors, the “teaching experience” may not be the same as it was several years ago.

“We’re down to the same level of funding we had in 1998, with 5,000 more students than we had in those days,” said Tim Burgess, senior vice president for finance and administration. “To expect that you can do the same things you can do today with the same level of funding you had in 1998 is expecting miracles. All of us are trying to perform miracles, but that’s a huge expectation on everybody’s part.”

Hillary Thornton, a junior from Folkston and Student Government Association CAES senator, does not think her college experience has changed as a result of the budget reductions.

The University’s Plant Sciences research farm now only has three full-time workers when it historically operated with six full-time staff.

“In spite of all of the budget cuts, I think that CAES has continued to function phenomenally,” she said. “However, I feel that if there are more budget cuts in the future, day-to-day life of students will be affected drastically.”

Students may think they’re shielded from the budget reductions because none of their professors have been laid off, but the continuous downsizing has a ripple effect, Burgess said.

“When you can’t hire the quality faculty you need, when you can’t offer enough of the right course sections to the students who come to UGA and when basic things like procurement become real problems, it begins to deteriorate to the point where you lose your reputation,” he said. “You’re not the same quality institution from top to bottom. That’s the concern, and that’s the focus we have in ensuring that doesn’t happen.”

To absorb more of the reductions, the College of Agriculture is also selling its 522-acre Plant Sciences research farm located in Oconee County. The farm has historically operated with a full-time crew of six, but due to past budget cuts, it now operates with only three full-time workers, according to the CAES website.

Angle said selling the farm will not have a significant effect on research because the college will move the research to other locations around the state. However, the farm is not only used for research purposes.

According to the CAES website, “although the primary focus of the (Plant Sciences Farm) has been applied research, many faculty also use the facility to support fundamental research, teaching and extension activities.” The local farm will no longer be available to faculty as a result of the budget cuts.

Angle plans to use some of the money from the sale to help renovate the college’s existing infrastructure.
“Our research infrastructure is in very bad shape, very poor quality,” Angle said. “We are the No. 4 College of Agriculture in the United States, but our infrastructure nowhere reflects our standing among our peers. It’s embarrassing.”

Though no faculty will be laid off in FY12, the new cuts may harm the colleges and departments within the University.
“We’ve done everything we can do to avoid layoffs in the ‘A’ unit but what that’s meant is extremely tight budgets across the campus for operating units, hundreds of vacant positions and repairs that go undone,” Burgess said. “Those things are all happening at the expense that we can try and avoid layoffs.”