Physics chair Robert Meyer said almost no money would be saved for the administration's integrated planning initiatives if Dean of Arts and Sciences Adam Jaffe's proposal to reduce research faculty within his department is approved.Meyer said the dean is misguided in recommending the department reduce the number of introductory physics courses, the scope of research and graduate student enrollment. But Jaffe said he believes the department is addressing too many areas at a time when the University is planning to shift its resources.

Each professor in the physics department receives research grant funding, a portion of which is allocated to the University to spend at its own discretion. If the department reduces its research faculty, Meyer said money would be lost by hiring professors who only teach, making the dean's proposals "incomplete."

"If professors are replaced by young people who just teach courses but don't do research, you lose," Meyer said. "In other words, if you reduce the size of the physics faculty, you save almost no money and the whole point of [Jaffe's] reductions is to save money."

Jaffe said his calculations are difficult to explain, but he is confident funding would be saved if some of the physics faculty were replaced with professors who do not conduct research. He said while the University obtains funding from grants, there are larger costs associated with research and providing salary and benefits.

"If you take [Meyer's] argument to the logical extreme, we should just double the size of the science faculty and everybody would be better off because we would have more money," Jaffe said. "But the fact of the matter is it's not a free lunch. Doing the research and supporting the research costs the institution."

Jaffe said changes would not occur for many years. But since physics is configured over several research areas, he said the department is too expensive to fund and that in addition to reducing research faculty, it is also necessary to de-emphasize certain course offerings.

The dean said he is aware of the department's "success and valuable contributions to the field of physics." He said he would not have proposed to reduce the size of physics if it were not necessary to look at broader curricular goals.

Meyer said his department is already doubling-up on courses by teaching graduate and undergraduate students in the same lectures. He also said competition is based on size and with fewer options available, it is more difficult for the department to achieve a high ranking among other institutions.

It is important for the department to continue offering as many astronomy and general education courses to maintain a successful department, Meyer said. He also said the curriculum is decided by trends in the field because certain courses must be offered.

"We fundamentally disagree with that," Meyer said, referring to Jaffe's proposal. "We have to teach a full program so that our undergraduates who get a physics degree can go on to graduate school with the right preparation."

According to Jaffe, he never said the University would not lose anything if certain aspects of physics were eliminated. But given the overall enrollments in the department, Jaffe said he "does not know if it makes sense for us to cover as many areas as we do."

The physics department has a total enrollment of 574 this semester, according to the registrar's Web site. This figure includes students who are enrolled in more than one course in the department.

Meyer said it was a mistake that discussion was not done quietly, adding," this is no way to run a university." If the administration wanted to propose cuts, he said that deliberations should have occurred alone within respective departments. Since the proposals are now public, Meyer said he believes damage has already been done to the department's reputation.

According to Meyer, he was not contacted about the proposals until shortly before Jaffe announced them during the Oct. 28 faculty meeting, when he had "clearly determined" to proceed with his plan.

"We communicated with him to try to get more details and he put us off until the Faculty Review Committee was formed [on Nov. 29, 2004]" Meyer said. "In fact, we didn't get any further details from him until January."

Jaffe said he tried to take the best approach upon announcing his proposals to the community. He said that a community-wide discussion was warranted, where students, faculty and administrators looked at the sciences, the social sciences and the humanities. Jaffe said anybody he has spoken with outside the University has been in response to what others here have divulged.

"I recognize that once you begin a discussion like this, it's inevitable that it's going to leak out and the world is going to know about it," Jaffe said. "I don't think that's desirable but I didn't see any other way to have this kind of comprehensive discussion of what our priorities are without doing that.