The financial news of recent weeks, as we all know, has been deeply troubling, both nationally and closer to home. With the release last week of a new revenue forecast from the state economist, we know the expected extent of the downturn’s impact on Oregon’s public agency budgets: at least a $142 million reduction for the current biennium. As many of you know, Gov. Kulongoski has issued a directive that state agencies implement a 1.2 percent budget reduction to address the shortfall.

The impact of budget reductions announced last week can be seen in red at the top of each bar, designating the amount to be reduced between now and June 30. (graph: OSU Office of Budget and Fiscal Planning)

The Oregon University System’s share of this cut is expected to be $10.2 million — 1.2% of the current general fund budget.  For Oregon State University, this represents a minimum level of cuts of $2.8 million from our general fund budgets; $1.4 million from our statewide public service programs (OSU Extension, Agricultural Experiment Station and Forest Research Laboratory); and $120,000 from the OSU Cascades Campus.

OUS has announced that it will determine how it will allocate the reductions among the campuses in early December once the governor’s budget is released.  They have indicated that this will allow the system to align current reductions with the Governor’s budget for the next biennium. We will not know the exact level of current biennium reductions until early December, but now expect them to be roughly as outlined above.

There is much still to be determined.  It is possible that the next state revenue forecast in late February 2009 could be followed by another series of reductions.  In December, under the direction of Provost Sabah Randhawa, a series of planning sessions will begin with academic leadership to discuss changes to be made in the next biennium and beyond.

We are already updating the strategic plan that we launched in 2004 and that effort will provide the context within which to chart our course for the next five years. Therefore, this is an optimal time with our core mission in mind to determine what key areas we need to protect; what areas best meet the demands of our mission and the needs of our students; and those that we will need to downsize or even eliminate in order to sustain our current level of quality and service.

The update of the strategic plan will be completed during winter quarter. Through an open and transparent process we will finalize our plans for the next biennium by June 2009.

Many of you may have immediate questions concerning how these financial concerns will affect you and your units. Among the most pressing questions we’ve heard so far are these, as well as answers:

*       Will hiring processes move forward for vacant positions? It is difficult to articulate an institutional policy, as some positions are critical to essential functions of the University and to the strategic priorities of the University.  Unit administrators are asked to review open positions, taking into account unit budget realities and importance of each position to essential functions of the unit. Some positions will not be filled.

*       Will salary increases go forward? Yes. OSU has planned carefully and conservatively in this area and will support implementation of those increases, including merit/equity raises scheduled for January. These increases are in line with decisions made at the other OUS institutions.  And, with OUS salaries already below national averages, we cannot afford to balance the budget by reducing our ability to attract and retain the best talent for our faculty and staff. OSU’s faculty and staff are responsible for the level of success and quality that the university has attained, and your extraordinary contributions must be recognized through equitable compensation.

*       How has the downturn affected the university’s endowment, payouts from which affect many salary and operational issues around campus? As you might imagine, our endowment is down, though less so than many of our peer institutions.  While the Standard and Poor’s index was down more 15 percent through the end of June, the OSU Foundation endowment was only down 4.66 percent. This put us in the top quartile of performers for endowments of our size. We do not yet have final numbers for the third quarter, but like others, we expect a loss. The university is fortunate to have an exceptionally experienced group of business professionals serving on the OSU Foundation’s Investment Committee, and they continue to carefully steward endowment resources in difficult market conditions. 
     
These are challenging, difficult times.  At times like these throughout OSU’s history, the university family has come together in thoughtful and creative ways to keep moving forward on our mission to serve the people of Oregon. The current economic situation demands that we work together again. And I have confidence that we will succeed, as we historically have, through the caring actions of committed individuals across our campuses and in the communities that we serve.

I will continue to make the case for OSU as aggressively and compellingly as possible, so that we can leverage all available resources for a university whose future is so closely tied to that of Oregon’s. As this state’s land grant university, with a founding and current mission of serving every county in Oregon, we will not waver from our commitment to providing excellent teaching, research and service, even in the face of circumstances that would sometimes dictate we do otherwise.

Thank you for your commitment to that mission and for your dedication to OSU.

On July 21, I and five other Oregon State University professional faculty members set off from Corvallis to tour seven of OSU’s 11 agricultural research centers and see their scientists at work in the field. We wanted to get a firsthand understanding of what they do so we could more effectively promote their work.

Kate Cusack, OSU’s director of federal relations, digs potatoes at the Hermiston Agricultural Research and Extension Center. (photo: Betsy Hartley)

The crew consisted of Jan Auyong, assistant director of the Agricultural Experiment Station; Kate Cusack, OSU’s director of federal relations; Betsy Hartley, director of external relations and marketing for the College of Agricultural Sciences; Luanne Lawrence, vice president of University Advancement; Melody Oldfield, director of University Marketing; and me, a public service communications specialist in the Extension and Experiment Station Communications department.

We traveled to berry fields, cherry and pear orchards, potato patches, wheat fields, and mixed conifer and sage rangelands and learned about OSU’s latest research until our heads were bursting with facts about irrigation, phytonutrients, the love life of aphids and the contents of cows’ stomachs.

Research centers we visited included ones in Aurora, Hood River, Union and Klamath Falls. In Hermiston, entomologist Silvia Rondon showed us her lab where tuberworm eggs incubated in a row of clear, plastic shoeboxes like babies in bassinets at a hospital maternity ward.

“They are very picky. If they’re not fed every day, they don’t lay eggs,” Rondon said of the potato pest. She’s studying how the insect survives during the winter, how cultural and chemical practices can control it, and how outbreaks can be predicted based on historical temperature data.

As we said our farewells, we were given nearly 20 Hermiston watermelons to distribute along our route. They were soon rolling around in the van like bowling balls.

That afternoon, like the parting of the Red Sea, the road ahead of us opened up a blond ocean of wheat as we approached the Pendleton branch.

OSU wheat breeder Jim Peterson (right) explains his research to Melody Oldfield and Steve Petrie at the Columbia Basin Agricultural Research Center. (photo: Betsy Hartley)

“Welcome to my office,” said wheat breeder Jim Peterson, standing in a field containing 6,500 experimental plots of wheat. Peterson and his team combine genes from breeding stocks obtained from all over the world to create varieties with desirable characteristics such as disease resistance, high yields and superior milling and baking quality.

The next morning, we set off for the remote Zumwalt Prairie, where OSU is working with The Nature Conservancy to study the impact of grazing on ground-nesting birds, plants, insects and soil. They’ve fenced off plots and stocked them with different quantities of cattle. The goal is to find the optimal number of cattle that will yield sustainable grazing practices on the prairie.

At one point, OSU ecologist Sandy DeBano performed for us her rendition of “Ghost Busters.” DeBano counts and identifies insects on the Zumwalt and elsewhere to understand their ecological roles. She straps onto her back a pack made from duct tape, a backpack frame, a small engine and plastic tubing you might find under your bathroom sink. After a few minutes of sucking up insects in the grass, she poured the contents of her filter onto a tray and pointed out carrion beetles and leafhoppers with infectious enthusiasm.

OSU ecologist Sandy DeBano (left) shows her husband, David Wooster, and Jan Auyong, assistant director of the Oregon Agricultural Experiment Station, an insect she caught at the Zumwalt Prairie. (photo: Betsy Hartley)

As our day at the Zumwalt ended, we loaded into the van, excited about what we had seen. And then we heard it. The hiss of a flat tire. But with three Ph.D.s among us and the researchers, we were on the road again in about 30 minutes.

Our last stop of the trip was Madras, where Steve James stood beside a dry-erase board in a conference room giving what sounded like a high school sex ed talk, except the subject at hand was aphids, a major pest of vegetable and seed crops. Talking about their reproductive cycle, he explained that the females don’t need a male to reproduce in the summer. But as the cold days of winter approach, they get the urge to snuggle up and mate with their male counterparts. We giggled. We suddenly liked these relatively independent creatures.

As the van headed back to Corvallis, we realized how much we had learned. Luanne Lawrence summed up our feelings: “From this trip, I can put faces to OSU’s agricultural research and tell a story of men and women dedicated to making this world a better place. The experience made me understand more fully how much of a difference these research centers are making. I realized how serious OSU is about helping Oregon address critical and sometimes less visible challenges that impact the livelihood of the thousands in this state.”

~ by Tiffany Woods