Chancellor Randy Woodson is set to axe more administrative positions in response to looming, undetermined budget cuts.
The Office of Extension, Engagement and Economic Development will lose five positions–two administrators and three support staff–under the chancellor’s realignment plan.
Services the office provides won’t change, but they will be reassigned and reorganized, according to the office’s vice chancellor, James Zuiches.
“My office is being closed,” said Zuiches, who recently announced his retirement. “But none of the programs themselves are being closed.”
Zuiches said he did not know the exact monetary savings the closure of his office will produce.
Zuiches said the chancellor will reassign the office’s economic development programs to Terri Lomax, vice chancellor for research and innovation. Programs for continuing education and the Shelton Leadership Center, however, will be reassigned to the provost’s office.
Most of these programs provided by Zuiches’ office are already managed and lead by college deans, according to Zuiches. His office’s role thus far has been to serve as a central hub for the programs, along with leadership and coordination services.
Through this cut, much of the office’s leadership capacity will be lost.
“Every dean already has an associate dean responsible for extension in these programs,” Zuiches said. “So I don’t think there will be a lot of additional work on the deans.”
However, Zuiches said the cut will increase the workloads of other University administrative divisions.
“There will be some additional responsibility in the vice provost for research office, and there will be some additional responsibility in the provost’s office,” Zuiches said.
According to the University’s website, the office has several divisions under its umbrella, and its unifying goal through those divisions is to “partner the resources of the University and communities to produce mutual benefits.”
The office has had three main goals, according to Assistant Vice Chancellor Mike Davis. It has worked with students who are on scholarships, worked with work-study students and has run a yearly national leadership forum. Politicians, athletes and corporate executives have traditionally spoken at the forum, according to Davis.
Davis did not say whether the forum would be cut.
The Shelton Leadership Center, currently part of the extension office, awards high school seniors and N.C State students scholarships based on academic merit and community leadership.
Alex Martin, a scholarship recipient and senior in business administration and international studies, said scholarships will continue to be provided.
“The Shelton Leadership Center has a large endowment not dependent on state or federal funding,” Martin said. “There are a lot of corporate donors; they are very intent on keeping it alive.”
This round of cuts is part of Chancellor Woodson’s realignment plan, created with input from Provost Warwick Arden and Vice Chancellor for Finance and Business Charles Leffler. Woodson’s administration has taken steps to mediate buts cuts to the UNC System expected from the General Assembly by assessing colleges and University service divisions line by line, cutting positions and services where they deem necessary.
Administrative positions have been a recurring target under the realignment plan. Woodson and Arden said they’re been attempting to “preserve the academic core” by addressing administrative inefficiencies.
The University and the N.C. university system as a whole have yet to receive an exact number regarding budget cuts from the state legislature, which should finalize the budget by July 1.
