Gov. Tom Vilsack’s proposed budget cuts have sparked concern among ISU faculty members concerned about increasing enrollment and decreasing resources at the university.

Vilsack’s $300 million cut proposal would strip $42 million from the 2002 budgets of Iowa’s three regent universities, including an $18 million cut to Iowa State.

“This is a serious situation,” said David Hopper, president of the Faculty Senate. “The [faculty] doing the work are decreasing, while enrollment is rising.”

At Tuesday’s Faculty Senate Executive Board meeting, members discussed a Board of Regents study which reported Iowa State is the only state university with a declining number of non-tenure track faculty members, according to a report from the state Board of Regents.

“This study only shows us part of the picture,” said Gregory Palermo, Design Caucus chairman and associate professor of architecture. “We would need to see a bigger piece of the pie before we could develop a strategy about the situation.”

Iowa State is expected to take an estimated $18 million cut if Vilsack’s proposal is approved by the legislature. The Faculty Senate said ISU faculty will feel the pinch if the cuts are administered.

“The biggest effect on the faculty will be twofold,” said Dean Ulrichson, former president of the Faculty Senate. “[We] will fall a bit farther behind in salaries and have departures in opportunity. It will also decrease faculty and increase service load on the faculty.”

A reduction in services or layoffs of faculty could be another consequence of the pending cuts, he said. Ulrichson, professor of chemical engineering, said a possible answer is to freeze faculty raises or institute one-week furloughs, under which all ISU employees would work for a week without pay. The one-week furlough would be equivalent to a 2 percent salary cut, he said.

“All these solutions could become reality, except the furloughs,” he said. “I would fight against the furloughs because they are ridiculous.”

Hopper, professor of veterinary diagnostic and production animal medicine, said faculty members encourage students and their families to contact their legislators.

“There is very little we can do, except make noise to citizens and legislators,” Ulrichson said. “There is a real budget crunch – the legislature has to do something.”