Students neglect important matters

Even with the heavy supply of information on the UH fiscal situation, the demand seems to be lackluster.

On April 28, Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost John Antel held an informational session for faculty and students. He informed them of budget plans and reductions for UH in reaction to the Texas budget.

Antel was blunt. “Our long term goals are non-negotiable,” he said. “The challenge is that we have to rethink the business model for public education.”

Executive Vice Chancellor/Vice President for Administration and Finance Carl Carlucci was also present, along with several other administration and finance members in the audience.

They gave an overview of the situation, using graphs to depict the budget revenue versus the deficit, and then went over cost reductions, tuition management, program closures and consolidations, as well as state/federal cuts in grants and financial aid.

The center point of the information sessions was that the 82nd legislature of Texas has yet to decide what the Texas fiscal budget will look like, and its decision could cut drastically more funding for public education than the 7.5 percent already taken.

“Even without the recession there would be some serious shortfalls,” Antel said. “We’re in for a long term process. This could take us four or five years.”

Without a doubt, the information can be found elsewhere, including the news section of The Daily Cougar, but also on the UH Administration and Finance website (http://www.uh.edu/af/).

The number of students who went to these sessions was unproportional. UH has more than 38,000 students, but the 6 p.m. session inside room 110 of Agnes Arnold Hall easily accommodated the audience, mostly faculty and staff.

Granted, most students are busy at noon; it would be expected that they wouldn’t show up in droves. Yet what excuse is there to miss both opportunities? Are students unconcerned about the financial well being of the university, or do they already know everything?

The students who have to wait agonizingly in line for hours at Financial Aid office probably know a great deal more about the budget cuts than the well-dressed honor students who rarely access their Peoplesoft accounts and rely on well-to-do parents to pay tuition.

However, it would seem dubious that both groups of students would not benefit from a firsthand account of the situation, especially from UH Administration and Finance.

When students are uninformed, they can perceive the higher-ups in education as villians who maniacally wring their hands; but those financial administrators of UH simply do what they have to do to make the campus survive.

To risk a cliché, knowledge is power. And the more knowledge and information the students and faculty have, the better off we’ll be when the Texas legislature starts the choke hold. If voters were actually informed and knowledgeable, the situation wouldn’t even have gotten to this point.

Without a doubt, hundreds more students stayed up all night just to watch the wedding ceremony in the UK live. The lesson here is not about money — it is about priorities.