Colorado University facing brain drain – Budget squeeze could lead to faculty exodus

The University of Colorado is suffering from a financial drought.

And if money doesn’t rain down from the state Legislature soon, CU President Elizabeth Hoffman told lawmakers late last week, some of the university’s most talented faculty will head for greener pastures.

By Ryan Morgan and Kate Larsen, Camera Staff Writers
March 8, 2004

http://www.dailycamera.com/bdc/buffzone_news/article/0,1713,BDC_2448_2712487,00.html

"We are in danger of losing our Nobel Prize winners, our MacArthur Genius award winners," she said.

Other schools with bigger budgets will try — and will eventually succeed — to lure CU’s faculty with more lucrative offers, Hoffman said.

State lawmakers are stuck in a constitutional crunch as they try and pass a budget. Two constitutional provisions — the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, which limits how much money the government can keep and spend, and Amendment 23, which mandates increased spending on K-12 education — are slowly squeezing higher education spending out of the picture.

Hoffman is asking lawmakers to approve Senate Bill 189, a short-term solution that would give CU "enterprise status," meaning more flexibility to go into debt and possibly increase tuition — which is vital, she said, to paying the school’s most talented faculty.

"When people start to leave, it won’t be the sluggards," she said. "They’ll be the best and brightest."

The university may see its funding crunch fixed within a couple of years, Hoffman said. But the brain-drain that could result in the interim could take decades to repair: luring top-notch talent back isn’t something you can do overnight, she said.

"I don’t believe we’re at a crisis point yet," CU Provost Phil DiStefano said. "I’m not concerned we’ll lose top faculty today, but if we don’t get enterprise (status), I really worry about next year — I think we’ll see some of the top faculty go to other institutions."

While other states are experiencing higher education cutbacks, too, DiStefano said they’re making up for some of the funding losses with tuition increases — something CU can’t do yet.

"What we need to do is take a look at what happens, if that faculty member leaves, to the reputation of department, school, etc.," he said.

Administrators currently are working on eight or nine counter-offers for top faculty who are weighing proposals from other schools, DiStefano said.

"They’re good faculty, but they’re not our Nobel Prize winners or MacArthur (Fellowship) winners," he added.

Carl Wieman, one of CU’s Nobel Prize laureates — he won the 2001 prize for physics, along with Eric Cornell — said people in his position have long realized they could take more lucrative offers elsewhere, but they like CU. They enjoy living in Boulder. And so they have decided not to accept more tempting offers.

Yet.

"People with major awards, we have lots of options. We’ve chosen to stay at CU in spite of less money here," Wieman said. "Having said that, if things get too bad, you just start to feel you can’t do what your goals are. … Now things are just looking so bad that I think some of us might be starting to reconsider whether it’s going to continue be a viable, top-notch university."

That’s why Wieman and other faculty are watching political efforts at the Capitol very closely — their careers may hang in the balance.

"I’m paying a lot of attention, and I think a lot of other faculty are, too," he said. "It’s something you worry about."

Contact Ryan Morgan at (303) 473-1333 or [email protected]. Contact Kate Larsen at (303) 473-1361 or [email protected].