Jon Robertson, chair of the music department for 10 years, is
having a serious case of déjà vu. The departmental cuts
he has had to make as a result of California’s ailing economy
have been all-too-familiar.
“My first year as chairman, we had severe cuts,”
Robertson recalled from his Schoenberg Hall office. It’s the
Tuesday before zero week, but the calm of the music building
contradicts the frantic rush that administrators have felt as
a result of the new budget.
“This is my last year as chair, so I feel that I came in
cutting, and now I’m leaving by cutting,” he
said. “That hasn’t been pleasurable.”
Regardless of the scenario’s familiarity, this
year’s cuts have still been the worst in a decade. Recent
figures handed down from the state will force Robertson and the
rest of the music department to tighten their belts ““ over
$100,000 worth of spending needs to be trimmed from the
department’s payroll, which amounts to about 4 percent of its
total budget.
Still, Robertson maintains an optimistic view, confident the
department will be able to make the needed cuts without sacrificing
the quality of education. While administrators are still browsing
through the budget to look for potential cutbacks, nothing is
definite. Likely cuts will result in the loss of some elective
courses unrelated to music students’ core requirements, as
well as a reduction in the number of departmental
performances. While student recitals are safe from budget
cuts, the number of chambermusic@ucla performances,
which ran this past year spotlighting the musical talents of the
faculty, are likely to be reduced.
“The music department is somewhat different from other
departments in that we have far more performances,”
Robertson said. “We have large ensembles, recitals, different
kinds of things that most academic programs simply don’t
have. Every department is going through this, but certainly those
departments that are performance-oriented historically use more
dollars to do this.”
At this point, any potential cuts from faculty will not result
in layoffs, but possibly reduced time for one or two
adjunct professors. Professors working full-time or half-time
may have their hours cut down. To Professor Robertson, that’s
one of the worst consequences of dealing with a budget that comes
so late in the summer.
“It really is very painful for those of us who have the
administrative responsibility of telling someone two weeks before
school that their time will be cut or their class won’t be
offered,” Robertson said.
Students may be affected in other ways as well. According to
Music Librarian for Public Services David Gilbert, a total of 10
hours have been cut from the Music Library’s weekly
hours of operation, and an unspecified amount has been cut from the
collections budget, which is used throughout the year to buy scores
and books. The library is financially separate from the music
department as it works under a different budget, but its cuts
figure to directly affect the students as well, possibly in a more
unpredictable way.
“There could be mid-year cuts because the situation is so
bad up in Sacramento,” Gilbert said. “We’re
probably OK until the next fiscal year, but who knows what will
happen? We could be asked to cut again.”
Though the numbers can be daunting, Robertson emphasized above
all a sense of composure amid the cuts that are serious, but not
dire.
“I think it’s really important that faculty and
students not see it as an arbitrary thing that’s being done
to them,” he said. “These are things we have to
live with, and adjust to the very best way we possibly
can.”