New personnel, retired and promoted faculty and award winners were honored Tuesday evening at the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Fall Convocation.

Peter Rabideau, dean of the college, addressed budget cuts, losses in faculty positions and student services in his State of the College speech.

“We all recognize that fiscal year 2002 was a difficult time for the budget,” Rabideau said.

“The budget for fiscal year 2003 is much better than we expected.”

He said budget problems are happening everywhere, but publicity regarding Iowa’s schools hit the press first.

“President Geoffroy ensured us that we’d receive bridge funding, which is a three-year loan that will help slow down the budget reduction process a little bit,” Rabideau said.

He said the college plans to “hard budget” money to each department this year.

“The department chairs like this approach because the money is right there for them and the president feels strongly about hard budgeting as well,” Rabideau said.

He said priorities for fiscal year 2003, which began July 1, include stabilizing the budget, conducting research and scholarship, fine-tuning course offerings and classroom space and conducting external chair searches for openings in statistics and the Greenlee School of Journalism and Communication.

“Making tenure-track hires is the No. 1 priority on our list,” Rabideau said. “The college initiated discussion on non-tenure track faculty that led to new policy procedures that will have a very, very good impact on our program.”

Student services are another area in need of improvement, because the colleges of Business and Liberal Arts and Sciences are no longer sharing career services facilities, he said.

“Career services are our own responsibility now,” Rabideau said.

Fund raising is another priority on the college’s agenda this fiscal year.

Investing in people, including department heads, professors and scholarship students and in capital projects like the Snedecor and Gilman halls are planned. A music endowment is another area in need, he said.

“The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences was the first to meet their fund-raising goal this year,” Rabideau said. “We aimed for $6.5 million and exceeded that.”