Because of ongoing budgetary problems, the University has proposed to reduce the size of the faculty, eliminate classes and hold off on important capital improvements, according to several administrators.The Board of Trustees met Thursday in Sherman Function Hall to discuss the preliminary University budget for fiscal year 2004, according to Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Peter French. The trustees also were presented with projections for fiscal years 2005 and 2006, he said.

French retold what had been presented to the Board of Trustees, saying, "We're looking at a gap that is approximately $9 million on an operating and capital budget of about $200 million."

This gap will be closed though a projected increase in net revenues from proposed tuition raises and from further reductions of $3.5 million to the University's budget, French said. The University has proposed to cut $2.5 million from academic budgets and $1 million from non-academic budgets.

These reductions to the fiscal year 2004 budget come after $4.6 million was cut from fiscal year 2003's budget between August and November. The new reductions also mark a departure from a trend of reducing non-academic budgets and maintaining academic expenditures.

The University had decided to raise spending for fiscal year 2003 last fall, but due to a major downturn in the national economy, the budget had to be slashed.

Many proposed reductions to the academic budget will be made in the School of Arts and Sciences, according to Dean of Arts and Sciences Jessie Ann Owens. "We are planning to reduce the size of the faculty somewhat and that will mean that there will be fewer courses offered," Owens said, "but I don't think the number is drastic, and I think it's being done with a great deal of care. In most cases we are just not replacing positions where a faculty member has retired or resigned."

The contracts of some non-tenured and non-tenure tracked faculty, however, may not be renewed. But according to Owens, "(The University is) not breaking any contracts."

When asked if the University will not renew the contracts of professors who wish to remain at Brandeis, she replied that may be the case in a small number of instances. For the most part, Owens said, open positions will simply be left vacant.

Associate Vice President for Budget and Planning James Hurley said this may result in remaining professors teaching the courses the eliminated professors had been teaching. "There may be a bit of a shift in terms of those contract faculty not teaching things and tenured and tenure-track faculty teaching what those faculty formerly taught," he said.

Owens said the University has set limits on the policy. "The other thing is that we've also looked at some positions and said we can't cut that, it's too important," she said.

With regard to the proposed reduction in classes offered, which would include approximately 50 courses out of 1,200 usually offered per year, Owens said, "We didn't want to damage any student's possibility of graduating and we want to make sure that all the courses that anyone needs to fulfill a degree requirement are there, so we're not closing any programs or doing anything like that."

Owens is also examining other ways to reduce the number of classes offered per academic year. "Right now we allow a course to run if it has only five students in it, and we're thinking of raising that minimum to eight for next year," Owens added as an example of what may be done to trim the course offerings.

All in all, however, Owens says she believed students will not suffer. "They're courses that I thought wouldn't damage the Brandeis experience if they weren't offered," she said. "In some cases they are multiple sections."

The University also plans to cut its non-academic budget by eliminating staff positions. "I am hopeful that we're going to be able to do this without any layoffs -- that we can achieve this through vacancies," French said.

The University will also hold off on investing in some capital improvements. "We have a huge backlog of stuff that we need to do and we're not spending enough to do what we should do every year," he said. "(But), we're going to try to minimize the impact on students."

According to both French and Senior Vice President for Students and Enrollment Jean Eddy, budget cuts will not affect how many students the University plans to enroll next year or how much financial aid the Class of 2007 will be offered. "Since '99, we have been at between 3,000 and 3,100 undergraduates and that is exactly what the projections that we made for the three years continue (to show)," French said.

"One of my main focuses has been the fact that we can only bring in as many students as the physical plant will support," Eddy said.

Echoing French's statement, she added, "I think this campus was designed for an enrollment of about 3,100 students, so we've been trying to get it there and keep it there."

Eddy said the University is seeking 860 students to fill the Class of 2007. The Class of 2006 has 838 members and the Class of 2005 has 742. The incoming class would be similar in size to the Class of 2004, which started with 859 members.

As for the amount of financial aid the University will offer, Eddy said, "There couldn't possibly be cuts made within the financial aid budget, simply because we've made promises to students as they entered, and we want to maintain our policies.