“Trust Us” Just Doesn’t Cut It

It seems like our school is falling apart.

First, the resignation of FUSA President Charlie Knights, followed by the announcement of a widening budget gap of $6.1 million… and counting.

While this is probably purely coincidental, it’s definitely strange timing. These events serve to reinforce that this is not a stable time for the University, as much as administrators would like to make it seem.

Then there’s the whole manner in which Vice President for Finance Julie Dolan cleverly hid the $6.1 million budget gap in her update email to the campus community explaining an increase of $1.8 million from the previous announcement of a $4.3 million deficit.

She dropped the news toward the end of the email, where the majority of students wouldn’t even notice it. And with the title of the email, “Dec. 2011 Update on University’s FY12 Operating Budget,” how many average students even opened the email, let alone read that far past the lines of numbers and vague sounding department names?

If we weren’t paying attention, we would’ve missed it too – and we were even looking for a good story.

The $6.1 million number was only mentioned once in the entire email, though it would appear to be a very significant revelation…why wasn’t it mentioned first and foremost?

Because that would have drawn attention; and as everyone has seen so far, attention is the last thing the administration wants at a time like this. The lack of real transparency at Fairfield in light of the serious budget crisis has been highly disappointing and frustrating.

We’re hopeful that the University will work to remedy this lack of transparency and will increase their efforts to collaborate with faculty, staff and students…yet at the same time, we’re wary of the administration’s history of silence – especially from our President.