Alumni Can Help University
In Critical Time at Hand

Decision as to what kind of a University the state is to have will be made by
the 1937 legislature which meets in January. The Alumni Association officials ask
alumni everywhere to help present the case of the University to members of the
legislature—a fair and interested group indeed who will give fair consideration to
the problem when it is presented to them.

The University’s budget situation this year is especially severe and significant
from several unrelated but converging causes. Restoration of all, or at least part,
of the reduced operating budget seems imperative.

Too often the reduction in the institution’s operating funds is thought of as
being dated from the legislative cut enacted in 1933. The fact is that, by request
of the then Governor and the Board of Regents, 10% of the funds appropriated
for use of the University for the 1931-32 year was turned back to the state treasury.
For the 1932-33 year 25% was turned back, nearly as much as the legislative cut,
which came in 1933.

So, by next July, the University will have run on a reduced budget for six
years.

Vacancies Hard to Fill

During that time resignations have taken many outstanding staff members, but
’ death has taken the following list of leaders: ex-Chancellor Strong, who was
teaching law, Dean Brandt of the College, Dean Shaad of the School of Engineer-
ing, Professors Hodder, Owen, H. A. Rice, and Thurnau, all department heads,
and Professors O’Leary, Ashton and Charles Sterling. Two more outstanding
professors who had been on the retired list, Drs. Bailey and Dunlap, also were
taken. Prof. Eugenie Galloo, head of the French department, retired last spring,
and six more of the University’s best will retire next spring. This list of nineteen
comprised a significant proportion of the supporting framework for the Univer-
sity structure. They had come to the staff years ago and would stay on almost
regardless of salary. To take their places, however, it either has been or will be
necessary to bring in persons at salaries somewhere near those paid in other
comparable institutions and with assurance that reasonable treatment may be
expected in the future.

The University of Kansas started into the depression period with salaries
11% to 16% under that paid by most other mid-western Universities. The fact
that the Kansas cut was deeper than most others and that most others have now
had partial or complete restoration, makes the Kansas scale so far under the others,
even those immediately surrounding the state, that the University will be at a
severe disadvantage in competition for competent persons to take the places of
leaders she has lost.

Reserve Balances Exhausted

Since 1933 the enrollment has increased more than 900, necessitating additional
maintenance, expenditures and employment of many part-time instructors and
office assistants. This expansion, far from adequate for satisfactory administration
and instruction, has been financed from reserve balances. Since these reserves
will be exhausted during the current year, some additional income is necessary
to maintain even the present budget.