Cuts to College of Music Budget
The College of Music is looking to
face a $500,000 cut to its overall budget come this fall semester.
While no specific reason has been
listed for the cut, the College of Music is looking into alternatives to help
refocus financial efforts. Shifting one-on-one lessons with music mentors to
class oriented teaching is just one example of what previous reforms have
changed.
Despite the negative impacts linked with
cuts, Jon C. Nelson, Associate Dean for Operations, is keeping an optimistic
mindset regarding how the College of Music will be handling the cuts. This is
in correlation with the constant increases and decreases in budget that the
University of North Texas has come to see over the years.
“We all realize we’re in this
together,” said Nelson, “We’re very good at thinking outside the box.”
Though this has not been the first cut
the College of Music has seen, cuts have become harder to work under in recent
years. While UNT tries to keep up with technological advances regarding the
replacement of older items, the College of Music is currently facing troubles
in personal computer department. For the past two years, the College of Music
has resorted to only replacing PC’s under the most dire of situations to help
alleviate costs.
In regards to the present $14
million budget, 12 million is reserved for faculty payments and salaries, 1.5
million for course fees and services, while the last .5 million is used for
MNO’s, or Maintenance and Operations.
MNO’s generally include the
maintenance, replacing, and purchasing of new music equipment, from instruments
to speakers, which can impact student events, such as the number of guest
artist concerts held at the university. Amongst the costs, however, MNO’s tend
to be the first item considered for evaluation when budget cuts are made.
While a financial budget has not been finalized for the
next fiscal year, the College of Music has made requests for additional
funding.
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