University Pruning

In Columbus, Ohio one day last week 236 people lost their jobs. Compared with the nation's or even Columbus' unemployed, their number was paltry. What made them newsworthy was the fact that they had all been employes of Ohio State University.

During the prosperous 1920's the Town felt a little sorry for the Gown. The professor had security, of course, but so had everyone else and no professor was considered overpaid. As the decade closed and the Town, its income reduced, had to go on supporting State universities by paying taxes, sympathy for the poor professor vanished. This year Depression has caught up to the universities with a vengeance. Of Ohio State's dismissed employes, 57 ranked from instructor to full professor, 127 were junior staff members. 52 nonacademic. Seventy-three others were put on part-time. Seven professors, including Joseph Villiers Denney (English), Herbert Osborn (entomology), Berthold A. Eisenlohr (German), were shelved with emeritus rank. All remaining faculty members had their salaries cut, for the third time, from 3% to 10%. Savings: $652,057.

For 1933-34 the University of Michigan had $896,414 slashed from its last year's budget. That, it was announced last week, meant cuts of 8% to 20% in all salaries over $1,500. It also meant the dismissal of 66 teachers, including four full professors, and 39 nonacademic em ployes. On part-time went 122 others. Administrative and maintenance expenditures will be cut to the bone.

The University of California's registration has increased 8% in the past two years. Its 1933~34 budget is $2,150,000 less than last year's. The loss will be covered chiefly by salary cuts of 2% to 20%. From a staff of 2,700 (including the Los Angeles branch) it has dismissed only about 80, of whom only 15 were instructors or higher. As in most other universities, positions vacated voluntarily or by death are being left unfilled. Again as elsewhere, the remaining faculty is being given heavier teaching loads.

Under its able young President Robert Maynard Hutchins the University of Chicago has come through Depression with hardly a scratch. President Hutchins knows how hard it is to up teachers' salaries once reduced. Except in the University's separately-budgeted medical school, where salaries this year go down 10% to 20%, he has allowed no cuts in staff or pay. But he has, in the past two years, eliminated 300 duplicate or overlapping courses from the University's curriculum.

University of Chicago's uptown neighbor, Northwestern, has not fared so well. Its teachers had their pay slashed 10% last year, an additional 10% this year. But none has been dismissed.

Last week University of Pennsylvania was anticipating a budget of some $550,000 less than last year. It expects to do some pruning among low-ranking personnel, but hopes to cover most of the loss by economies in plant operation.

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