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Outcomes of the 2010 State Legislative Session

Dear Members of the University Community:

With the 2010 session of the State Legislature now concluded, we have a clearer picture of what our budget for 2011 will be. The results are about what we expected—we ended up doing better in some areas and worse in others, and there were no surprises in the concluding hours of the session. While there were many disappointments in the session, I was extremely pleased that need-based financial aid was kept intact. Our student and faculty leaders joined us in making a strong case for the critical nature of these funds, and our arguments carried the day. It is also fair to say that without the revenue package the Legislature ultimately agreed on, things could conceivably have ended up much worse than they did, particularly for student financial aid. A summary of the budget legislation may be found on the University’s Office of Planning and Budgeting web site.

In 2011, we will be dealing with a continuation of the budget cuts we have endured now for three years running. In 2009, the University’s state general fund budget was reduced by $16.8 million. This year, our budget was reduced by an unprecedented $94.7 million. And next year, we will have another reduction of $20.6 million. Thus, over this three-year period, we will have lost $132 million in state general fund support—a 33% reduction in state support.

We have been able to withstand the worst effects of the budget reductions in part because the University has been authorized to increase tuition. We have had to look to our students to pay more for their education because state support has shrunk so much. We do not relish having to raise tuition, but without that additional revenue, we simply would not be able to offer students the educational experience they deserve.

As we did this year, in implementing the additional reductions, we will try to minimize the impacts on academic programs and students. Provost Wise is meeting with deans, vice provosts, vice presidents, and faculty and student leadership as she develops the new budget proposal for 2011. Earlier this year, schools and colleges were asked to model cuts of 3.5 and 5%, and these have been posted to the Office of Planning and Budgeting web site. Many of the effects described there will be moderated by the additional tuition revenue we anticipate next year.

This is truly an extraordinary time in public higher education. Other states have seen comparable reductions in state support, though few of the magnitude we have experienced in Washington. We have lost hundreds of jobs as a result, while our student enrollment has remained constant. It has meant that we have had to serve our students with much diminished resources and make very difficult personnel decisions. But, throughout our campuses, we have seen numerous examples of faculty and staff who have been inventive and creative in finding ways to meet student needs. It has not been easy, and I want to thank all of you who have gone to extraordinary lengths not to let the quality of the UW educational experience erode.

In fact, our students and faculty continue to excel, compete, and garner exceptional prizes and awards. A team of students from our mathematics department placed among the top winners in the International Mathematical Contest in Modeling, for the eighth time in the past nine years. This year they finished among nine outstanding winning teams from over 2,000 entries. Also from our math department, the University had its first ever Putnam Fellow. Will Johnson, a mathematics and computer science major, was one of only four winners out of 4,000 national competitors for this prestigious award. In addition, four students (Devon Chandler-Brown, Noah Horwitz, Sherry Lee, and Christopher Mount) won Goldwater Awards, two (Audrey Djunaedi and Geoffrey Morgan) were named Morris Udall Scholars, and Jesse Burk-Rafel became the University’s first Luce Scholar in more than fifteen years. We had another faculty member named to the National Academy of Engineering: Dennis Lettenmaier, professor of civil and environmental engineering. Professor William Catterall, chair of the Department of Pharmacology in the School of Medicine, became the UW’s tenth recipient of the Gairdner Award, among the most prestigious in biomedical science. Four of our ten Gairdner award winners have gone on to receive a Nobel Prize. We are very proud of the accomplishments of these students and faculty—and others who have been recognized this year for their remarkable achievements.

So we have much to celebrate and much to be concerned about. These have been difficult times for faculty and staff, whose workloads have increased and who will have gone two years without an increase in pay. We do not know when we will have authorization and resources to resume salary increases, but our faculty and staff cannot go much longer without them. In the meantime, I want to thank all of you for the work you do and the care you show every day for student learning. It is one of the hallmarks of this University, and something we all should take great pride in.

With your help, we will get through these challenging times and emerge a better and a stronger University.

Sincerely,

Mark A. Emmert
President