WSU Vancouver students might argue that the university’s recent round of budget cuts may have trimmed a little too much. Emails sent to prospective students over the summer informed them that the University Scholars Honors Program has been defunded.
In an effort to reduce overall spending by 2.5 percent, according to WSU President Kirk Schulz, the system-wide spending freeze means the Vancouver campus Honors program is no longer funded.
WSU Vancouver students received emails in early May informing them that the program had been defunded, blaming the spending freeze for the inability to fund a new cohort.
President Kirk Schulz wanted the budgeting exercise to cut the university’s annual deficient of $30 million down to $10 million and so on until the deficit is eventually gone, according to a statement by Schulz published in The Columbian.
The Honors program consists of a two year cohort of undergraduate students from various majors. Once accepted into the program, students would work with faculty mentors to develop a research project. The selective program required students to have a minimum 3.5 GPA and 30 credits. However, the defunding of the program is Vancouver campus specific.
The defunding does not impact the Honors College
on the WSU Pullman campus. The Honors College in Pullman operates differently than the Honors Program on the Vancouver campus, lasting four years and honors classes substituting UCORE classes.
June Canty, the WSU Vancouver associate vice chancellor for Academic Affairs, advises the University Scholars Honors Program. As the adviser, Canty oversees the program’s budget.
Canty requested $10,000 per year to fund the program. In April of 2018, that request was denied due to the spending freeze.
Canty said the defunding of the Honors program came as a surprise.
“When I came in, we had a budget that had been set up that was never replenished and last year we were in the red. So, the regular Academic Affairs budget was helping pay the bills and with the spend freeze we just couldn’t keep doing that,” she said.
One goal stated in the mission of the WSU Vancouver Strategic Plan is “To advance knowledge through research, innovation and creativity across a wide range of academic disciplines.” Canty said she believed the mission statement for the Strategic Plan included the Honors program and she thought the budget should reflect that.
“I asked for $10,000 a year for two years…it didn’t get funded and a lot of things didn’t get funded because of the spending freeze,” Canty added. She further explained how the $10,000 budget funds the stipend to the professor who advises each cohort, as well the $500 research allowance for each student in the cohort that can be used upon request to advance their research.
WSU Vancouver professor Mike Berger is the current adviser for the Honors program’s last cohort, 2017- 2019. Berger believes that the Honors program is important for students and is hopeful that the program will be initiated after the spending freeze is over.
“The budget freeze is a three year freeze and so we’re in year two. By the end of next year, next spring — spring 2020 — the budget freeze will be over. We know that Academic Affairs, who funds the Honors program, will be able to spend money,” Berger said.
Berger added that the cancelation of the Honors program affects students by impacting the way they find research.
“It doesn’t impact them in terms of going out and looking for [research]…but what it does impact is being able to have this opportunity for a group of students to have some sort of guided and directed research through the Honors program,” Berger said.
For the most part, WSU Vancouver students are still unaware of the Honors program being defunded.