UW faculty stretched thin after latest budget cuts

The University of Wyoming will enter the 2022 fiscal year with a wide array of new financial constraints after the school’s board of trustees finalized roughly $16.5 million in reduced spending on June 16.

Deans and other university leaders have warned that the cuts will further strain the overworked faculty and will hinder the academic ambitions established by administrators and the Wyoming Legislature.

And yet the worst is still to come; next month UW leaders plan to announce up to $17.5 million in additional cuts. Those are expected to result in a pronounced constriction of UW’s programming.

The budget woes are largely the consequence of a $31.3 million cut to UW’s block grant approved by the Legislature this spring as part of a broader effort to offset diminishing revenues from Wyoming’s minerals industry. During UW budget hearings in May, most deans expressed concern about faculty shortages — a persistent issue since the last round of budget cuts in 2016 — and President Ed Seidel warned the upcoming academic year is likely to be “a bit more turbulent” for faculty losses.

Read more: https://www.wyofile.com/uw-faculty-stretched-thin-after-latest-budget-cuts/