Only three days before a decision on the proposed program cuts to UNL’s budget, NU system President Jeffrey Gold told the Faculty Senate the Board of Regents members had not made up their minds.
In response to a question, Gold said faculty members or others might persuade the regents to take a path for cutting $27.5 million from the university budget different from the one proposed by Chancellor Rodney Bennett . The best way to do so, he said, would be to present clear, rational arguments about why the recommendations are not correct.
Two faculty members, Susan VanderPlas of the statistics department and Corey Rumann of the education administration department, told Gold they thought the decision to cut four departments and merge four others had been made.
The agenda packet for the Dec. 6 Board of Regents meeting includes materials proposing the elimination of the departments of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Education Administration, Statistics, and Textiles, Merchandising and Fashion Design. For each, the Agenda Item Summary, which introduces the supporting materials, says the president recommends approval. Gold said the recommendation of approval is simply the form for presenting items to the board for action and does not indicate a decision has been made.
The board will also consider two other proposals, one to merge the departments of Entomology and Plant Pathology and another to merge the Agricultural Leadership, Education and Communication Department with the Agricultural Economics Department. Those also carry the president’s recommendation of approval.
Much of Gold’s time speaking to the Senate, which lasted more than an hour and 40 minutes, was devoted to the university’s budget problems and the prospect of eliminating four departments.
In his opening remarks, Gold presented some budget numbers to explain why the university is in this situation. One is the failure of state appropriations and tuition to keep pace with inflation. This year’s state appropriation is about $132 million more than it was 10 years ago, Gold said. But in 2015, the consumer inflation rate was about 1.8 percent; for the first nine months of 2025, it’s about 3 percent. And inflation in higher education, Gold said, runs higher than inflation in the consumer price index. If state money and tuition revenue had simply kept pace with the CPI, he said, the university system would have about $393 million more than it has now.
The cancelling of some research grants and delays in others only aggravate the university’s financial difficulties, the president said. And on top of that the tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump have increased the cost of some of the equipment and supplies the university buys overseas by about $13 million.
The situation could get worse, Gold warned. The Nebraska Economic Forecasting Advisory Board is projecting lower revenues for both this fiscal year and the next. The board said in late October that revenue for the 2025-26 fiscal year will be about $120 million less than expected. And for the 2026-27 year, it could be $247 million lower.
Gold said Gov. Jim Pillen is calling for additional spending cuts. For this year, the university received only 0.65 percent increase in its state allocations. Gold said that 0.65 percent may be in jeopardy, although he was working to persuade legislators to protect it.
“At some point the overall state investment in higher education has got to be addressed,” Gold said. “We need all the oars pulling in the same direction to get there,” he added, encouraging faculty and others concerned about the future of the University of Nebraska to contact legislators. He said the legislators are tired of hearing from him because he’s “in there every day, every week, with the same message.”
The only way out of the financial problems, Gold said, is growth. “We need to eat the lunch of other R1 universities. We can’t rely on state resources.” That will mean recruiting out of state students, not just from the states around Nebraska but from across the country, he said. It will also require new ways to grow the university and its student population, and he encouraged anyone with an idea for growth to bring it forward.
Gold also addressed questions about the process used by UNL administrators to identify which programs to cut. All four campuses had to make cuts, but each used a different approach, he said. So, the decisions and the process for identifying cuts were left to the leaders of each campus. Nevertheless, he said, it had been made clear to him when he took the job as president and to Bennett when he became chancellor that the university could not continue to run a structural deficit.
“Every day we can’t make a decision (on the structural deficit) just kicks the can down the road,” he said.
Gold also said all of the information about the proposed program cuts, including the information gathered by the Academic Planning Committee, had been shared with the regents. But he seemed uncertain when VanderPlas said information she had compiled about the shortcomings of the data used by the administration to identify programs for elimination was ignored by those to whom she offered it. She said she would send Gold links to her data.
John Shrader, the Senate president, raised the issue of the merger of UNL and the Medical Center in Omaha for accreditation purposes. The merger has been approved by the regents and submitted to the Higher Learning Commission, which will decide on the request in late May or early June.
Gold said UNL remains the flagship university for the system because of its history, tradition, facilities and the prestige brought by the athletic programs. Merging UNL and the Med Center for accreditation will enhance the research standing of both institutions and foster intercampus programs, he said. He also said a shared governance system for the two campuses will be necessary and should be developed from the bottom up.
The Senate amended its agenda the morning of the Dec. 2 meeting. The original agenda included a proposed resolution from L.J. McElravy of the agricultural leadership, economics and communication department censuring both Chancellor Bennett and President Gold. McElravy said he asked that the resolution be pulled from the agenda so that it would not appear that the Senate was ambushing Gold.
In other business, the Senate approved changes to the membership of the University Commencement and Recognition Committee making all faculty members voting members so that the committee will have less trouble securing a quorum.
