POSTED BY MARTIN KICH

As I noted in yesterday’s posting of Dan Slilaty’s statement on the primacy of the relationship between faculty and students, we have been asking our members to speak at the meetings of our Board of Trustees as part of our ongoing contract campaign at Wright State. What follows is a statement made by David Buckovinsky, Professor of Accountancy, at the most recent Board meeting. I think that it also very much speaks to issues in higher education beyond those at our own campus.

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I am Dr. Dave Bukovinsky, Professor of Accountancy.  I have taught at the university level for 32 years including 19 at Wright State.  Three weekends ago I voluntarily spent Saturday working with a group of accounting students preparing their entry for the Institute of Management Accountants’ Student Case Competition.  Wright State accounting students have competed in this prestigious national competition for the past 26 years.  In that time, Wright State students have advanced to the “final four” 22 times.  Five of those teams won the national championship outright.  This record is unmatched by any other accounting program in the country.  We are fortunate that such gifted students choose Wright State for their education.  Our department has separate AACSB accreditation.  Our undergraduate students rank #1 in Ohio for CPA exam passage rates and our graduate students rank #10 in the nation.  Our Beta Alpha Psi honorary society chapter consistently wins national honors.  Our full-time, professional faculty in the Department of Accountancy provide our students with an outstanding education that makes them highly sought-after by employers.

I teach Management Accounting in our undergraduate program and Strategic Cost Management in our MBA program.  In these courses, students learn that the two most important assets are not on the balance sheet.  They are the organization’s customers and employees.  Mismanage one or both of these assets and the future economic value of the organization is jeopardized, as is the very existence of the organization.  They learn that long-term value creation must take precedence over short-term decisions made to temporarily improve undesirable operating results.  They also learn that cost-cutting can only produce limited results, which are often damaging in the long run, whereas revenue growth and its benefits can be limitless.

All I have heard over the past several months is that Wright State must cut its costs to avoid being put on fiscal watch.  The entire focus seems to be on avoiding an embarrassing outcome next year.  The strategic implications of these actions are not considered.

Most of the budget cuts come from areas that directly affect our students.  Replacing full-time professional faculty with part-time teachers with questionable qualifications, while simultaneously reducing the overall number of faculty, will greatly erode the quality of education we provide our students.  Fewer classes will be offered, class sizes will increase, students will receive less individual attention and the time required to earn a degree will increase, placing more financial stress on our students as they spend more on tuition and are forced to delay starting their careers.  Lower quality education will reduce the value of a Wright State degree.  This will in turn make Wright State a less desirable option for students.  Enrollments will suffer, and tuition revenue, state support and scholarships will decline.  This shows a complete disregard for our customers.  I doubt any plan you may have to increase enrollment will overcome the impact of diminished educational quality.

The bulk of the cuts come from faculty and staff salaries.  That, and the changes to the CBA proposed by the administration and board, are causing a deterioration of the work environment and demoralizing faculty and staff.  Your decisions and proposals are making Wright State a less desirable place to work.  A less desirable work environment will make it more difficult to attract quality faculty in the future.  The inability to replace faculty will further erode the quality of education we can provide.  It will also impact the quality and quantity of research being conducted, which will result in reduced revenues from research grants.

I am particularly concerned about the ability to attract qualified faculty because more than half of the faculty members in my department are either at or very near retirement.  Our past experience has shown that it is very difficult to attract qualified accounting faculty.  With one exception, all of our faculty had some connection to Dayton or Ohio before joining the Wright State faculty.  With the constant national demand for accounting faculty it is very difficult to find qualified faculty interested in relocating to the Dayton area.  This will not improve with the current budget and CBA situations.  What do we tell candidates?  “We can offer you a below market salary and you will not receive any raises in the foreseeable future, and you may have to give back part of your salary if furloughs are imposed.  You will not be able to count on summer teaching to supplement your salary because the administration prefers to give those positions to less expensive part-timers.  Your teaching load will be heavier than at other universities and may be increased at any time at the discretion of the administration, as may class sizes.  You will be asked to pay more for your benefits and the administration can change or eliminate those benefits as they see fit.  Finally, you may be denied tenure even if you meet the criteria outlined in the bylaws.”  How are we supposed to attract qualified faculty under those conditions?

Additionally, the administration stated at the last “Let’s Talk” forum that budget cuts made so far will keep the university off fiscal watch.  If that is true, why is the administration placing such unrelenting pressure on faculty salaries and benefits?  If there is no longer a danger of being placed on fiscal watch, why are you trying to sell your CBA proposals as necessary for the financial health of the university.  The majority of the faculty believes the administration is using the threat of fiscal watch as a convenient excuse to reduce faculty compensation, even though, by the administration’s own admission, the threat has passed. Your actions show a complete disregard for your employees.

Alumni and other donors also need to be considered.  Given the administration’s incredible mismanagement of university resources and the apparent lack of oversight by the board of trustees, why would anyone want to give money to the university?  The amount of bad publicity the university is receiving will most likely increase if the quality of education declines and relations with faculty deteriorate, possibly to the point of forcing a strike.  Public opinion of Wright State will grow even more negative.

The draconian budget cuts you propose may in fact keep Wright State off fiscal watch next year.  But what about the next 5 or 10 years?  Reducing the quality of education and Wright State’s desirability to both students and faculty will have very real immediate and long-term results.  The cuts may bolster the bottom line this year, but tuition, state support, scholarships, research grant revenue and donations will certainly decline in the future.  What happens to Wright State’s bottom line when the top line is spiraling downward and there are no more cuts to be made?  Being placed on fiscal watch will be inevitable.  Wright State and its stakeholders, including students, faculty, staff, alumni and community, would be much better served if the necessary investments were made to make Wright State more desirable, not less.  Going on fiscal watch with a well-conceived, long-term strategic plan to grow revenues and emerge from fiscal watch in an orderly manner, well-positioned for the future with growing revenue streams, is far better than temporarily avoiding fiscal watch by implementing damaging budget cuts that will erode the very foundation of the university – its students and faculty, impair our future revenue-generating capacity, and ultimately land the university on fiscal watch will little hope of ever emerging.

I am proud of our students and their dedication, hard work, sacrifices and accomplishments.  Without them, we would not be here.  I am equally proud to be a member of a faculty that exhibits an unwavering devotion to our students and their success, and displays a passion for excellence.  Without us, the students would not be here.

The first line of our mission statement is “We will:  build a solid foundation for student success at all levels through high-quality, innovative programs.”  The solutions you propose for our current fiscal situation will do the exact opposite.  The proposed solutions will erode the foundation on which this university is built.

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David Bukovinsky with Wright State accounting students in 2011 when they placed in the final four for the 14th time at the Institute for Management Accountants (IMA) national competition.