Dirty Laundry

The New York Times recently published a full-length article chronicling all the ways colleges and universities are cutting back in these recessionary times. The piece's intent was surely to show how bad things are, but these are the examples it gave:

• The University of Washington communications department is saving $1,000 a month by cutting land lines from its offices.
• Dickinson College saved $900 by making a swim meet with Bryn Mawr College "virtual." Each team swam in their own pools and then they compared the times. The college saved $150,000 by cutting free laundry service for students and $75,000 by eliminating ESPN and HBO in the dorms.
• UNC-Chapel Hill cut a bus tour that introduces new faculty members around the state.
• Oberlin saved $22,300 by reducing window washing. It's also reducing the hours at its cafe.
• Pitzer College is power washing its sidewalks only once this year instead of twice.
• Carleton College is reducing trash pickup from daily to weekly.
• Whitman College imposed limits on free printing in computer labs. It's $60 per semester this year and will be lowered to $50 next year.
• Whittier College will save $30,000 this year by eliminating cafeteria trays.
• Washington and Jefferson will no longer serve breakfast at Trustee's meetings; they'll have free passes to the cafeteria instead.
• Davidson College will save $10,000 by switching from bottled water to tap.
• Cornell College will not replace old voicemail equipment in order to save $40,000.

Cutting free laundry service, HBO, unlimited printing, and bottled water, these are the best the Times could come up with? See anything in the list about revamping the curriculum, developing online content, re-thinking the deployment of professors, re-establishing teaching as dominant over research, or anything more substantive than cafeteria trays?

It could just be sloppy journalism. The Chronicle of Higher Education has two slightly more meaty pieces in its latest issue. One chronicles the mismanagement of Greensboro College ($) that's leading to a 20 percent reduction for salaried employees. The other ($) found departmental cuts at Washington State University (theater, dance, German, and community and rural sociology), Florida Atlantic (Master's program in women's studies), Wisconsin Lutheran (political science), and Louisiana State (philosophy). These are important developments to the students and faculty studying or working in these particular departments, but as the articles describe, many were selected for the ax precisely because of faculty and student disinterest.

It could be there's just not that much to report. Like a lot of other industries, the higher education job market is dry and many current employees have taken pay cuts. But so far journalists covering these issues have yet to write about any sweeping, dynamic change that a higher education institution has pursued to cut costs or dramatically change the way they do business as a result of budget constraints.