Across the world, various religious sects and other assorted individuals have come to the conclusion that the year 2012 will mark the coming of the apocalypse.
As the ASU community read through a cautionary e-mail sent out by President Michael Crow on Wednesday, it may have come to a different conclusion: The 2012 doomsday predictions may not be soon enough for ASU.
In the grim message, Crow said that the Arizona Legislature’s proposal to slash $70 million from the University’s budget over the next five months, with another $155 million in reductions coming in the next fiscal year, has left him “deeply concerned” for the ASU’s future. He warned that, if the proposal passed, the University would have to possibly shut down an entire campus, lay off thousands of employees, require a two-week-or-more furlough of all remaining employees, close academic programs and considerably increase tuition and fees.
By going beyond the massive lump-sum numbers and instead showing tangible real-world consequences, he effectively showed us the true extent of the potential cuts and the disastrous setbacks they would force upon the University.
Though appearing fearful and vulnerable in state matters for the first time in a long time, Crow has also begun his posturing, trying to use whatever sway he has before the proposal reaches the floor. Whether his show of swagger will work remains to be seen, but it appears that, for perhaps the first time in his presidential tenure, Crow has both the faculty and the student body on his side in the fight against the cuts.
Just hours after Crow sent out his e-mail, the University team’s opposition — the GOP leadership of the state legislature — scored a big hit with the inauguration of a staunch fiscal conservative, Republican Jan Brewer, as governor of Arizona. After facing six years of Janet Napolitano’s vetoes, the legislative leaders must be anxious to both push their budget proposal through without fear of veto and to strike back at Crow, the University and its bloated budget.
And just as we see Crow’s point, we see theirs to an extent as well. With the state in an unprecedented — and largely despicable — financial position, cuts are necessary. To us, no side is completely in the right on the budget issue.
Regardless of the outcome, we must come to grips with the fact that our state’s spending habits must change, and on a more basic level, that our state in general is forever changed.
There is not a right answer to this convoluted mess. In all scenarios, the citizens of Arizona will lose. In spite of this, we must all continue to push through in as civil a way as possible, and look together — not just as a University, but as a state — for as fair of an answer as possible.
And that’s where we must look to our new governor. If Brewer cannot mediate between the two sides to find such an answer, this state could very well fall into line with those doomsday beliefs, ringing in 2012 and its Four Horsemen a little early.
