Newspaper Page Text
CLA faculty vote for
Godsey’s resignation
By CHARLIE SMITH
News Editor
The Liberal Arts Faculty on the Macon
campus voted Tues., Jan. 10, to call for the
immediate resignation of President R. Kir
by Godsey. The resolution passed 64-6 dur
ing the faculty’s normal monthly meeting.
The resolution is concise in its message
and states plainly the faculty's "fear that
recommendations made by this president
could further endanger the college and the
university." In reference to the handling of
the finances of the institution the resolution
states that Godsey * ‘has demonstrated his in :
competence, recklessness, and untrustwor
thiness."
Faculty learned in late November that
Godsey and his chief financial officer. Robert
Skelton, had been concealing short term
loans since 1982 that now add up to $14
million. As a result of the debt that ha» only
been common knowledge for two months,
the university is having to make budgetary
cuts which could possibly include faculty
terminations.
Some programs on the Macon campus,
such as the debate team. Rave already been
cut as a result of the newly disclosed finan
cial crisis, but the College of Arts and
Sciences in Atlanta seems to be taking the
immediate brunt of the blow. Twelve
members of the Mercer-Atlanta faculty have
already been notified that their contracts
might not be renewed next year. These
notices were apparently not served in accor
dance with the American Association of
University Professors guidelines which arc
endorsed by Mercer. - ' \
The Macon faculty adopted another resolu
tion in their faculty meeting which declared
their “complete solidarity" with the faculty
of Mercer Atlantal College of Arts and
Sciences.
The Trustees will meet on Jan. 27 to heai
the proposals of the Trustee’s Budget Cut
ting Committee. This committee, which was
formed in December after the financial crisis
was completely disclosed, has been in
vestigating possibilities for the most strategic
budget cuts.
t
President Godsey has promised that stu
dent services will be the last item to be cut,
but already the debate team has been disband
ed, library hours haye been cut. and the Con
tinuing Artists’ Series has been cancelled.
volume 7i. number i2 Special edition of The Mercer Cluster kru>ay*ianvary o, i»»9
University encounters $14 million in debt
By CHARLIE SMITH
News Editor
On Tues.. Dec. 29. 1988, Dr.
Sammye Greer, Dean of the Col
lege of LibceaL Arts at Mercer s
Macon campus, told her faculty the
news that she had learned less than
two weeks before: Mercer was $14
million deeper in debt than almost
anyone had known.'
The explanation for the newly
disclosed debt was that President
Kirby Godsey and Senior Financial
Officer Robert Skelton had been
making unrealistic enrollment pro
jections, juggling university ac
counts, and taking out “secret"
loans. The disclosure of Mercer’s
state of financial crisis was made
when Skelton and Godsey were
denied loans to cover annual
deficits similar to those that had
been accrued and covered every
year since 1982.
The implications of President
Godsey’s announcement to the
Trustees led to the resignation of
both Robert Skelton (who was in
volved in the securement and con
cealment of the loans) and Joseph
Claxton Utfbo was not involved).
In President Godsey’s own
Dr. Sammye Greer
Revolution begins
By RON LIGHT
It would not be an ovepu^tement
to say that the situation on the
Mercer Atlanta campus is tense
Since the revelxlmo* Iasi spring by
the Trustee's Select Commmion
on Univcrsny Priorities, which an
nounced a plan to decrease the
number of majors in the college,
change the name from the Cecil B.
Day College of Arts and Sciences
to the Cecil B. Day College, and
sell off land surrounding the Atlan
ta campus which was part of the en
dowment. the faculty and students
in Atlanta have been actively strag
gling against the adminijtration
Wnh the recent revdatwrh that ma
jor budget cuts muonx made in
older to balance the university
budget, the situation on the Atlan
ta campus has grown worse.
Early on. the 'Atlanta faculty
voted no confidence in President
Godsey and called for hit resigna
tion. Recently, the faculty of the
College of Liberal Arts followed
suit, and at the same time passed
a resolution expressing solidarity
with the Atlanta faculty. These
latest votes camp only a few days
after the Atlanta campus received
news tlus nine professors jobs may
bb terminated after Dec. 31. While
Kick Goortey, the provost of the
Atlanta campus-stated that die loss
of jobs would • not affect the
"academic integrity of any of the
words (taken from a written report
he presented to the Trustees). "Wc
will be compelled to reduce expen
diture. in the colleges and schools
where expenditures have already
been carefully controlled and
limiicd. Bot the simple fact is dial
we face five .years of serious
austerity in undergraduate educa
tion."
It has become evident that
members of the Mercer admtnutra
tion have been consistently projec
ting high ftilurc enrollments to the
university’s Trustees. The Trustees
have referred to these projections
and in fact designed Ihe universily
budget in accordance with them.
When ihe freshman classes and
number of. transfer students did not
measure up to the administrative
projections, the result was dial the
colleges and schools of Ihe univer
sity ran budget-deficits.
In order for Ihe university's
operating budget to appear to be in
at MUA,
programs. " one program was ef
fectively completely cut by the pn>
posed removal of the school’s on
ly foreign language professor. Dr t
June Laval, the professor who
received notice, was also the only
tenured professor among the- nine
faculty who-may be let go. Or
dinarily. tenure would protect a
faculty m^pber from such action,
but because the trustees have
declared a “state of emergency. ’
such actions can .now be taken.
In an interview on Jan. 5. with
the Atlanta Journal. Dr. Gourtcy
stated that the “professor-who has
tenure was approach mg retirement
age. “ but the Journal also reported
Sen MUA. pngt 10
the black, all of the deficits were
transferred to another budget: the
Plant Fund. The Plant Fund is a
profit budget (unlike the operating
budget which is non-profit.) It is
used as an accounting tool by many
non-profit corporations. It incor
porates funds for building and
maintenance with money to be us
ed for debt services and many other
diverse functions. A Plant Fund
may also be typically used as a con
venient place for funds that arc in
the process of being transferred
from one account to another.
As a profit budget, the Plant
Fund undergoes a separate and
completely different auditing pro
cess than the operating budget. In
one account, these differences in
the auditing procedure have been
blamed as the cause of the Trustees
ignorance of the existence of the
short term loans.
The deficits rim by ail of the col-
See Deficit, page 10
