Swine flu, the controversial disease that has been ubiquitous in global news , even made it onto the agenda at the year’s final Faculty
Senate meeting.
Swine flu and the recent tuition surcharge were among the main talking points at last night’s meeting in the James E. Rogers College of Law building.
University of Arizona Police Department Commander Brian Seastone and director of Campus Health Harry McDermott reiterated that the campus had no plans to shut down despite recent occurrences of swine flu in Pima County. McDermott added that although no cases have been reported on the UA campus, the Campus Health Center is equipped with a small supply of federally provided antibiotics.
McDermott said that concern about swine flu has been somewhat overstated because the World Health Organization’s designation of the disease as an epidemic is mostly a result of the wide geographic area it covers, rather than because it is particularly deadly.
Seastone said that although it is highly unlikely that the UA will need to employ any of the emergency measures it has prepared in the event of a problem with the disease, the situation has provided a good opportunity to overhaul the UA’s emergency preparedness system. This is the same system that would be employed in the event of a natural disaster or other emergency, Seastone said.
University President Robert Shelton commended Seastone’s efforts and said he was completely confident in the Campus Emergency Response Team, the same organization that issues the emergency text-messaging system UAlert.
Provost Meredith Hay addressed the tuition surcharge, the recent decision by the Arizona Board of Regents to raise tuition by $766 for residents and $966 for non-residents.
Hay said that although the surcharge was unfortunate it was necessary to make up for gaps in the state’s budget that won’t be filled by incoming federal stimulus money, which Shelton said would total about $144 million.
Shelton added that the surcharge, which is planned to last only one year, could be reduced or eliminated in the future pending additional federal money and permanent revenue generated by the UA itself.
“”We need to work our permanent budget so that it is more in line with our permanent income,”” Shelton said. “”We are far from out of the woods. We should not stick our heads in the sand when we have decisions to make about budgeting.””
Other business discussed at the meeting included a minor restructuring of the curriculum approval process and the decision to eliminate the current English courses for Honors students (English 103H and 104H) and move students who would have taken those classes into the one-semester English 109H, which is currently only offered for students who scored a 4 or 5 on the AP English exam.
A decision about whether to create a new School of Mathematical Science was postponed until next semester.
