About The Mercer Cluster. (Macon, Ga.) 1920-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 13, 1989)
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
