I am back, as I promised!
Reading an article in this week’s TIME magazine (09/21/2009, Vol.174, pp81), I realized that there are numerous extravagances due to prodigal administration. Probably it wouldn’t be a problem a few years ago, however nowadays, during recession, it is a necessity to slash budgets! This is what many Universities across the States thought and actually did, saving not hundreds but…thousands of dollars.
For example:
HARVARD UNIVERSITY is saving $900,000 (per year I suppose) by stopping serving weekday hot breakfasts at undergrad dorms
MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY cut eight varsity sports teams, including the hand-pistol, alpine-skiing and wrestling teams, and saved $485,000
WESTERN WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY saved $485,000 by punting its 100-member football team
DICKINSON COLLEGE is saving $150,000 a year by dumping its free laundry service
UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO Will saves $122,000 by curtailing trash removal and window-washing
CONCORDIA COLLEGE Reduced food waste by 40% (environmental friendly too) when it ditched its cafeteria trays earlier this year
How about Western Kentucky University??? I am really curious to know.
You can find the full article in this week’s TIME issue or at the following link:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1921613,00.html
It also reminded me of an article in the newspaper I read years ago, saying that airline companies saved millions of dollars by removing only one olive from each meal they served! Can you imagine that?
Let’s do the math: for example USAirways flies from JFK, Newark, Washigton DC, Chicago, Miami, Boston and Philadelphia to destinations in Europe (London, Munich, Frankfurt, Paris, Amsterdam, Milan, Athens, and Istanbul). Assuming 30 one-way trips (USAirways might not fly from every US airport to every European airport I mentioned above), the round trips would be 30*2=60. The average number of passengers per plane could be 150 (probably more). What do we have so far? 60*150=9000 passengers daily flying ONLY to Europe!!! And 365*9000=3.3 million per year. How about saving 3.3 million olives every year only from European destinations? Add the trips to and from South America, Asia, Australia and Africa; an enormous amount of money!!!
Seize the day and save some money!
Michael
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The college where I got my undergrad degree changed their athletic department from division one to division three to save a lot of money. I'm glad to know my undergrad isn't the only one who had to cut back!
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ReplyDeleteMichael,
ReplyDeleteYou are totally correct man about the budget cuts, and the issue which used not to scare me has recently started being a threat because we, as graduate students, are living in the US and breathing the campus and academic world. Especially, I, as a GA in MBA, have already faced a couple difficulties in terms of waivers and tuition scholars because of the budget cuts.
Moreover, this is very often and sad I believe. WKU is a really good university even though it is not too well-known all around the US. As a student of this university which I enjoy being a part of it a lot, I can see the requirement of the new Master and especially Ph.d. programs which bring a lot of problems with itself. Unfortunately, budget cuts are the biggest obstacle ahead of us and we are well aware of the fact that if you can not have such departments which create projects mostly and make researches as Ph. d students usually do, it is really difficult for such a university to improve itself more and more and become a well known and desirable education institution.
Therefore, the future days, even though they seem to be all right soon, scare the crap out of me. I hope that we would be all right and have such great futures with our families.
Thank you for the entry.