UNL faculty members ask regents to pause budget cut process

University of Nebraska-Lincoln professors spoke against budget cut proposals at the Board of Regents meeting Friday.

UNL officials announced a plan in September to potentially eliminate six programs and merge four others in response to a smaller-than-needed allocation from the state legislature. Hearings for each of the impacted programs are underway and go until Oct. 10.

Kent Eskridge, a statistics professor who’s worked at the university for 38 years, said his department has tried to recreate the metrics analysis the university used, but has run into issues.

“The procedures state that any unit affected will be given timely access to the data that went into the decision,” Eskridge said. “We still did not have access to what we would need to properly vet the numbers. Again, faulty data lead to faulty conclusions.”

Eskridge added that data didn’t accurately reflect professors who had left and been replaced. He said while those professors were included in budget numbers, the value of their performances was not reflected in data.

“When we made the administration aware of the oversight, we were told every unit is treated the same way,” he said. “Well, this is assuring, but it doesn't help any of the smaller units like ours, where these changes are less easily absorbed than in bigger units.”

Kelsy Burke, a sociology professor and member of the American Association of University Professors, said the process has lacked transparency.

“The chancellor's proposal was finalized during a time when most faculty were not on contract,” she said. “They asked for feedback based on short and often unrealistic timelines, and have refused to make public how the specific metrics were chosen and developed to make determinations about program cuts.”

In September, Executive Vice Chancellor Mark Button shared that the university used several metrics in the areas of instruction and research, including the amount of student credit hours in a department, degrees awarded and research publications.

John Shrader, UNL faculty senate president, said in a letter to regents that UNL’s state-aided budget has increased by 0.6%, while the medical center campus saw a 28% increase and Kearney and Omaha each saw 15% increases. Central administration, he said, increased 106%.

“The investment in our campus has been – and I choose my word carefully and correctly – pathetic,” he wrote.

Robert Szot, a first year master’s student and graduate research assistant in the earth and atmospheric sciences department, said cutting his program would be detrimental to Nebraska, especially when it comes to research about tornadoes.

“Our researchers dare to drive vehicles and fly planes into storms that no one else in other universities will dare to do,” Szot said. “No other researchers in our university would do any research close to that that helps save Nebraskan lives.”

In 2024, an E-4 tornado destroyed homes in Elkhorn, Bennington and Blair.

“No one died because of the quality of our forecasters from our department at the National Weather Service offices here in Omaha and TV stations,” Szot said. “The impact of our department to the state of Nebraska is clear.”

Szot added that he travels across the state to visit schools in the university weather vehicles.

“When they see our vehicles with that logo on the side of the door, they trust in us to protect them. They trust this university to protect them,” he said. “Don't betray that trust. Don't cut the department of earth and atmospheric sciences.”

Erin Haacker, an associate professor in earth and atmospheric sciences, said these potential cuts are impacting her and her family, especially her 83-year-old father-in-law, 10-year-old daughter and two-month-old son.

“I never again want to hear what a difficult decision-making process this has been for members of the higher administration who have no skin in the game, whose loved ones aren't suffering,” Haacker said. “To be here at this meeting, to beg to keep doing my increasingly thankless job when I could be studying Nebraska's groundwater resources, I could be mentoring students right now, I could be holding my baby, that was a difficult decision.”

University of Nebraska President Jeffrey Gold said the university as a whole is facing challenges, including the recent UNL budget cut proposals.

“We as an institution, and certainly I personally recognize how painful these recommendations are,” Gold said. “They will affect lives and livelihoods, and they will affect the very fabric of our institution.”

He added that the cuts are currently proposals under review, and the Board of Regents will vote on any proposed cuts before they are final.

Also during public comment, two speakers called for regent Elizabeth O’Connor to resign from the board after being charged with driving under the influence. According to KETV, court documents show O’Connor is accused of causing life-threatening injuries to the passenger of the other car involved.

Ricoh Mountain said his three daughters and their grandparents were in the other car.

“The consequence of this reckless act was devastating,” Mountain said. “My daughters’ grandmother sustained a broken back and a broken pelvis. Both vehicles were declared totaled, and all individuals involved were treated for minor injuries on the scene.”

Regents approved phase two of the design process for Project Health, an expansion of the University of Nebraska Medical Center campus. Gold said it will be the state’s largest teaching, clinical research and health care facility. The building will hold more than 550 beds and will cost $2.19 billion overall.