Staff Editorial: Such great heights

"The ultimate security is your understanding of reality." - H. Stanley Judd The newest draft of the strategic plan estimates the university will be able to secure an additional $50 million of yearly funding from the state. This figure is included in a new section with projected costs of implementing the plan in its entirety. The section is an important improvement over the year 2000 strategic plan, which omitted the discussion of finances almost entirely. Its addition shows how much the university administration has learned from the corporate world, where business plans are couched firmly in terms of dollars and sense.

The plan's authors write, "We are convinced that a successful implementation of this plan will have a profound and lasting positive impact on the competitive success of the State of Maryland." They are right.

And while we hope the university will successfully be able to work with University of Maryland Chancellor Brit Kirwan and the Board of Regents to use the plan's august aspirations to secure increased allocations, a reliable stream of funding is impossible in the current system where higher-education allocations are subject to the whims of economic variability.

In yesterday's article "Strategic plan carries $2B cost", Sen. Jim Rosapepe (D-Anne Arundel and Prince George's) said the figure was "absolutely feasible" if the campus community was willing to work for it, citing the success of environmental groups in securing $50 million to clean up the Chesapeake Bay. He didn't mention that the funding for the bay was cut by $25 million when legislators were faced with a budget crunch this spring. Or that it took a green governor, an activist attorney general and a liberal legislature to get the bay funding considered in the first place.

The last time the system faced a budget cut of the same magnitude as the bay funding took this year was in 2003, when Kirwan called the cuts "a devastating blow ... set[ting] us back four to seven years."

Imagine that, all of the progress we've made in the last decade gone in a single year. We can't afford to lose all that again. The only way we can have a decade of secure funding for the university is for the state legislature to take the plunge and implement a guaranteed revenue stream for the university.

POLICY: The signed letters, columns and cartoon represent only the opinions of the authors. The staff editorial represents the opinion of The Diamondback's editorial board and is the responsibility of the editor in chief.