URI Tries Downsizing by Formula

摘要

The University of Rhode Island is cutting departments on the basis of a detailed self-audit aimed at preserving the best and the most cost-effective; other universities are watching closely. KINGSTON, RHODE ISLAND—if your lab is in one of the many U.S. universities facing a budgetary crisis, you might want, to payattention to what's happening to plant pathologist Larry Englander. The University of Rhode Island (URI), where Englander works, is in the midst of a sweeping downsizing that many believe could be a model for other hard-pressed schools around the country. Admissions to graduate programs in plant sciences were cut off last fall, a move that Englander says pushed his department "one step closer to oblivion."