Serious kudos to ISU President Gregory Geoffroy. In the short year he has been with us at Iowa State, he has had the distinction of working with a budget that, as the calculus types might say, is approaching zero. Not only did he never get to wallow in the relative largesse that graced us until recently, he has had to make some tough choices that could have made him Iowa State’s version of Evil Incarnate.

Despite his post at the helm of a land-grant institution that is being put out to pasture by the Iowa Legislature, Geoffroy has managed to show a model of leadership that is refreshingly pro-active and self-sacrificing.

Thanks to the slash-and-burn approach taken by the Legislature, Iowa’s regent institutions are not the places to become your best that they once were. While our friends in Des Moines have touted employee furloughs as the answer to our budget woes, President Geoffroy has emphatically refused to implement them. Leaders at the other state universities continue to waffle on the issue.

In a communiqu‚ posted on the Iowa State Web site on March 1, Geoffroy held that “The university could not equitably and efficiently carry out a furlough plan.” Rather, he has spearheaded efforts to reduce energy consumption, defer renovation in some places and make administrative cuts, even among those the office of the president once considered indispensable. This year’s salary increase for employees will be 2.6 percent – less than the pay increases at the University of Iowa and the University of Northern Iowa, but more than the nonexistent increases proposed at nearly half of the Big 12 universities.

Geoffroy’s stand on employee furloughs makes sense for several reasons. By maintaining some kind of a salary increase while not requiring furloughs, Geoffroy is valuing employee morale far more than the institutions that are using furloughs or zero-pay increases as Band-Aids for their budget woes. Because wages and salaries come from so many pots of money, designing a method for fairly sending people on their merry way for twelve unpaid days a year would have required time, talent and resources that are better redirected to the problems at hand.

The real tragedy is that the Iowa Legislature has such little regard for the scholastic and institutional knowledge held by Iowa State faculty and staff. Failing to see the worth of bright academicians and competent members of staff results in the talented, in-demand professionals seeking new horizons at institutions better equipped to compensate them for their abilities. President Geoffroy is doing his best with the money he has, but many positions will unfortunately go unfilled in the fall, ultimately diminishing the quality of education and life in Iowa.

In response to President Geoffroy’s lead, the entire campus – students, faculty, and staff – need to take a hard look at what they can do to remain cooperative and creative in addressing the budget crunch. Stretching assistantships among graduate students, more careful use of laboratory equipment, campus computers, and office supplies and continued vigilance on energy consumption are all feasible ways everyone can help alleviate the pressure.

Several measures can be aggressively implemented to curb spending. Cy-Ride will be free for students next year, and it will be running more routes than ever before. In lieu of escalating the demand for parking and, in turn, letting parking-lot construction suck life out of the budget, take the $57 you would be charged to park in the commuter lot and pay your tuition or write your state representative.

Next year is going to be tough for everyone. We simply will not enjoy some of the opportunities and resources we once did at Iowa State. On the bright side, I am heartily encouraged that Geoffroy has shown that he can deftly and justly handle the cuts the legislature sends his way.

Rachel Faber Machacha is a graduate student in international development studies from Emmetsburg.