Moving Forward With A Response To Proposed Closing Of College Of Agriculture
By: Doug Busselman, Executive Vice President
Since the announcement on March 1st that University of Nevada, Reno officials were proposing a list of possible actions, including the closing of the College of Agriculture, there has been a full-court press on developing the response to deal with the proposals. It is good to see that students are mobilizing as they are capable to organize.
In response to the ideas that were laid out here as a potential list of prioritized ideas, we’ve received outstanding feedback including this very detailed and well-thought-out assessment/prospective approach. These and other matters will be discussed at length when the College of Agriculture’s Advisory Committee gets together for a meeting on Thursday.
Various actions are underway to provide input to the decision process which is used in the University system to evaluate the proposed plans. While this approach of “defense” is necessary and requires our best efforts, it also needs to be understood that the considerations are in the context of criteria which weigh a justification for continuing based on the status quo. If successful you get to keep what you’ve got, albeit with less money and probably missing key faculty members who are already deciding that going somewhere else -- a place where agriculture education and research are considered priorities for Land Grant Universities -- is a better option.
There will be additional follow-up with Nevada Legislators and others who are capable of implementing meaningful actions to address the situation and put in place the steps necessary to protect agricultural research assets from being plundered for cash-strapped UNR officials who seem to consider those assets as the money tree which should be plucked for harvest.
We continue to maintain and have made significant progress in gaining support for legislation putting any agricultural research asset sell-off funds into a trust account which would be used to support agricultural education and research. The approach needs to also provide constructive limitations for those ultimately in charge of the oversight process of Nevada’s Higher Education system. This protection is necessary given the track record of the past several years, especially the manner in which the Board of Regents side-stepped their own policy guidelines that supposedly were in place to accomplish the same recognition of agricultural assets being utilized for the needs of Nevada agricultural producers.
As we have seen on a repeated basis, the best interests of Nevada agriculture isn’t part of the considerations involved with those at the helm of the University system overall as they grab for whatever cash they can obtain, not caring whatsoever about negative consequences to the citizens of the state who work to make a living farming and ranching.
The Money Questions Still Need Attention:
In spite of the known necessity of cutting $11 Million off the UNR baseline budget, the factual information on how the proposed actions equal progress to accomplishing this object are not known. Based on a response that was given to us in one discussion on this subject, we were told that the University was working on determining the numbers for these proposed actions. Wouldn’t the exact ramifications for each specific proposal already have been assigned a value, if saving money was the desired outcome? Why wouldn’t those details been part of the proposals (example: this action will save this much – this proposal has this estimated outcome) when they were announced?
When you don’t have to deal with one of the reasons for being what you are – you can recreate yourself to be something you’d prefer to become. It is possible that the actual savings of dollars isn’t as much the priority to be achieved as positioning for the future without having to work around a part of the system which has been a roadblock in selling off the assets that University officials want to cash out.
Moving Forward…
We’re far from accomplishing the tasks which are required to provide the complete and successful response for meeting the state’s needs for agricultural education and research, but the way in which various supporters and advocates are coming together bodes well for setting a responsible course for moving forward.
Since the announcement on March 1st that University of Nevada, Reno officials were proposing a list of possible actions, including the closing of the College of Agriculture, there has been a full-court press on developing the response to deal with the proposals. It is good to see that students are mobilizing as they are capable to organize.
In response to the ideas that were laid out here as a potential list of prioritized ideas, we’ve received outstanding feedback including this very detailed and well-thought-out assessment/prospective approach. These and other matters will be discussed at length when the College of Agriculture’s Advisory Committee gets together for a meeting on Thursday.
Various actions are underway to provide input to the decision process which is used in the University system to evaluate the proposed plans. While this approach of “defense” is necessary and requires our best efforts, it also needs to be understood that the considerations are in the context of criteria which weigh a justification for continuing based on the status quo. If successful you get to keep what you’ve got, albeit with less money and probably missing key faculty members who are already deciding that going somewhere else -- a place where agriculture education and research are considered priorities for Land Grant Universities -- is a better option.
There will be additional follow-up with Nevada Legislators and others who are capable of implementing meaningful actions to address the situation and put in place the steps necessary to protect agricultural research assets from being plundered for cash-strapped UNR officials who seem to consider those assets as the money tree which should be plucked for harvest.
We continue to maintain and have made significant progress in gaining support for legislation putting any agricultural research asset sell-off funds into a trust account which would be used to support agricultural education and research. The approach needs to also provide constructive limitations for those ultimately in charge of the oversight process of Nevada’s Higher Education system. This protection is necessary given the track record of the past several years, especially the manner in which the Board of Regents side-stepped their own policy guidelines that supposedly were in place to accomplish the same recognition of agricultural assets being utilized for the needs of Nevada agricultural producers.
As we have seen on a repeated basis, the best interests of Nevada agriculture isn’t part of the considerations involved with those at the helm of the University system overall as they grab for whatever cash they can obtain, not caring whatsoever about negative consequences to the citizens of the state who work to make a living farming and ranching.
The Money Questions Still Need Attention:
In spite of the known necessity of cutting $11 Million off the UNR baseline budget, the factual information on how the proposed actions equal progress to accomplishing this object are not known. Based on a response that was given to us in one discussion on this subject, we were told that the University was working on determining the numbers for these proposed actions. Wouldn’t the exact ramifications for each specific proposal already have been assigned a value, if saving money was the desired outcome? Why wouldn’t those details been part of the proposals (example: this action will save this much – this proposal has this estimated outcome) when they were announced?
When you don’t have to deal with one of the reasons for being what you are – you can recreate yourself to be something you’d prefer to become. It is possible that the actual savings of dollars isn’t as much the priority to be achieved as positioning for the future without having to work around a part of the system which has been a roadblock in selling off the assets that University officials want to cash out.
Moving Forward…
We’re far from accomplishing the tasks which are required to provide the complete and successful response for meeting the state’s needs for agricultural education and research, but the way in which various supporters and advocates are coming together bodes well for setting a responsible course for moving forward.
Posted by Doug Busselman at 3/10/2010 5:55 AM 
Categories: Agriculture
Tags: University of Nevada Nevada Walker River Project College of Agriculture closing Agriculture
Categories: Agriculture
Tags: University of Nevada Nevada Walker River Project College of Agriculture closing Agriculture
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