The University of North Dakota Budget and North Dakota Quarterly

For anyone interested in the fate of North Dakota Quarterly during the most recent round of UND budget cuts, go and read our statement here.

As you can maybe imagine these cuts have been pretty difficult for the entire university community, and while the university tries very hard to be transparent, they really don’t know how to do it. For some this is frustrating, but for many of us, it’s sad. I reminds me a bit of my dog when he really tries to understand human language, but can’t. Except then it’s cute. 

I think these cuts provide an opportunity for all levels of the administration to learn about how the university works. It will be a time of growth for our administrators as they discover where cuts matter and where they don’t. Invariably some cuts involved eating seed corn that administrators will want for in the future. Other cuts pared away the small pockets of fat on campus that while profligate, provided flavor. While faculty and students can thrive in almost any environment, I worry that mistakes made by deans, provosts, and presidents will make it more difficult for these individuals to move on to more lucrative and prestigious jobs elsewhere and make it more difficult to recruit quality administrators in the future.