Seeking Solutions at San Diego State : Education: The faculty and president try to heal their rift and trim budget by $10 million while upholding the school’s status as a graduate study and research center.

The faculty and president of California State University’s most prestigious campus are struggling with two troubling questions that threaten the school’s very identity:

How can they slice $10 million from San Diego State’s budget and still preserve the institution’s status in the Cal State system as a campus rich in graduate and research programs?

And can they, while figuring out the answer, also rebuild a working, if not cordial, relationship between president and professors that seemed irreparably torn a few weeks ago?

The state watched in confusion last summer as San Diego State convulsed in faculty revolt over President Thomas Day’s proposed budget cuts.

Professors staged protests, held bitter and biting faculty meetings, and voted in August to make the unprecedented demand that the Cal State board fire Day after 14 years as president of the San Diego campus.

That the other 19 Cal State campuses faced the same painful budget hardships with a relative minimum of fuss made the events at the system’s flagship campus all the more stunning.

In late May, Day issued a sweeping plan detailing the most drastic cuts of any of the Cal State campuses. Nine of 60 academic departments would have to go completely, he said--including anthropology, Russian and German, religious studies and health sciences--along with nearly 150 tenured and tenure-track faculty members.

The harsh edict has since been withdrawn, after a cooling-off compromise arranged by system Chancellor Barry Munitz.

Now, Day has put out the word that he is willing to consider alternatives to his original plans, which he says were issued with frightening speed because of time constraints that later proved less urgent.

“I would be the first person to be delighted if we don’t have to lay off any tenured or tenure-track faculty,” Day said this month. “I hope the faculty and the colleges can now address that.”

But that was not Day’s tone in late spring, when the president left no room for compromise on his $10-million jolt, even as rumblings of dissent among 1,200 professors quickly grew into a roar of anger--especially over Day’s major swipe at tenure, long considered sacrosanct in academic life. He was the only Cal State president to propose major cuts in tenured positions.

Day believed that deep, across-the-board cuts would do more to damage graduate-level research, the university’s hallmark, than his plan to target a minority of departments so the majority could thrive.

Few if any professors fault his goal of preserving San Diego State’s flagship status. They agree that the campus stands out among the Cal State institutions in its emphasis on extensive graduate programs and faculty research.

Rather, the faculty attack what they say are Day’s high-handed style and reluctance to take advice with good grace--advice that they insist could show how to achieve necessary savings without eviscerating graduate programs or tenured careers.

“Tom screwed it up,” said Ernst Griffin, a San Diego State geography professor for 20 years.

Griffin spoke against the call for Day’s firing at an Aug. 27 faculty meeting, saying that “Day may be an s.o.b., but at least he’s our s.o.b.”

“He has a straightforward logic,” Griffin said recently, “which is to lay out the maximum amount of pain, let everyone know who is in harm’s way, and then go back and remediate, if possible.

“Most people work from the opposite direction, by first figuring out the maximum range of pain and also how much remediation can be done, and then telling people what may then happen.”

The fray reached such a pitch that Chancellor Munitz recently stepped in with emergency funds to calm the situation by ordering all termination notices withdrawn for the academic year. In the meantime, he said, Day and his faculty should go back to the drawing board together and deliver a consensus plan.

In the process, both sides agreed to keep the elements that made the university stronger than its sister schools: more stringent tenure requirements, nine joint doctoral programs and $60 million in non-state research grants awarded to professors--almost as much money as professors garner at all other Cal State campuses combined.

Munitz said that the question now is whether the magnitude of looming cuts requires the faculty to choose between tenured professors and research and graduate programs.

“We must protect as much as possible of that which is unique at SDSU. . . . we must try to keep our reactions narrow so that most people do not feel directly threatened,” Day told the faculty when it met to demand his resignation.

But Day now says he is not wedded “to the particular nine departments” that he earlier identified for elimination “or even to three or four if we can do something else but still protect what is unique about San Diego State.”

In part, the greater willingness to compromise is a result of pressure by Munitz.

While trying to work with both sides, Munitz has chided Day for a lack of diplomatic skills. In his years as president, Day has developed a reputation for both intelligence and acerbity.

“There has to be a middle ground here,” Munitz said. “One thing that simply can’t continue is the tearing apart of San Diego State’s academic and social fabric. . . . You can’t have changes at an academic institution without the faculty having a feeling of participation.”

But at this point, the faculty’s faith in Day may be damaged beyond repair, even if less harmful ways to slash $10 million are found.

Individual college deans are already drawing up what are to them more palatable options to spending less.

The College of Arts and Letters has set up several committees to recommend ways to cut back as much as $2.6 million, using retirements, consolidation of academic programs and other methods to minimize layoffs of tenured faculty.

College of Sciences Dean Don Short, whose faculty have won almost $18 million in government and private research grants, said that he can “avoid having to get rid of professors or ending graduate support by doing several things in my budget. There is a middle road which has not been well explored, both for my college and the university. I don’t think we will have to see these massive layoffs.”

Short’s college was ordered to cut $2 million, including 37 tenured or tenure-track positions.

Short said that if Day had sat down with representatives from all seven colleges on campus and solicited advice, he could have kept his original proposal for layoffs to about 40. With expectations that retirements and other personnel actions could reduce that number further, “Tom then could have gotten his plans through much, much easier,” Short said.

“The faculty understand that we have a tremendous graduate program which makes our undergraduate efforts stronger, and they do not want to see it hurt . . . but with all that has happened, a critical core of faculty has turned against Tom.”

The experience of Prof. Karen Senn illustrates the faculty distrust.

Senn has won almost $300,000 in non-state grants to support her graduate-level research in health sciences--a major example of San Diego State scholarship--but in May she nevertheless was targeted for dismissal and her health sciences department scheduled for elimination.

Senn went to Day with a plan for reducing her department from 12 professors to 3.6 positions, severely crimping its offerings but still maintaining core undergraduate courses and some graduate work.

But Day asked where the money would come from to pay the remaining 3.6 positions, rather than agreeing to use Senn’s plan as a basis for discussions.

“It’s not very useful if I have proposed deep and narrow cuts (to eliminate) some departments and the (counterproposal) is only to reduce by some percentage,” Day later said in recounting his reaction.

In Senn’s view, “it shows how isolated Day is. Because he’s never been a president who goes out and about among faculty and students, he doesn’t get appropriate feedback and ends up convinced there’s only one way to do things.”

Senn reflected the view of many faculty in saying that Day should consider additional cuts among his administrators and the athletics program, beyond the minor reductions made so far.

Munitz expressed surprise at the extent of faculty efforts to cut budgets yet maintain the university’s scholarship mission.

For instance, he called Senn’s departmental proposal “the type of faculty input that needs to be worked with . . . so that the campus can hammer out a compromise.”

At the September meeting of Cal State trustees, Day’s 19 colleagues sat stolidly as Munitz talked about the campus’s problems in response to the faculty vote asking for Day’s dismissal.

While reluctant to get involved in the issue, a few later said that Day’s strong personality undoubtedly has been a factor in the controversy.

“Tom’s not a compromiser, and compromise is often sought in these situations,” said President Curtis McCray of Cal State Long Beach, the second-largest campus in the system. McCray had originally planned for about 14 tenured layoffs this year but was able to avoid them.

“I’m certain that we might be into that situation again next year and already my provost is talking with faculty about how we can reach consensus around the next budget-cutting process,” McCray said.

The president of San Francisco State, Robert Corrigan, proposed no tenured layoffs “because tenure means not just freedom of inquiry, but also the chance for people to commit themselves fully to the institution.”

But Corrigan said that each campus can do things differently.

“People like Tom have a very clear sense of their values and priorities, and the correctness of their position,” Corrigan said.