NASHVILLE–Dr. J. Wade Gilley has appointed an eight-member committee to look at cutting administrative costs at the University of Tennessee.
UT-Memphis Chancellor Bill Rice will head the group, which is charged with reviewing UT’s structure, organization, policies, procedures and practices.
Gilley said he has asked the group to identify ways of making the university administration more efficient. He asked the committee to complete its work by Jan. 15, 2000.
“We must find alternative ways of increasing budgets for research, scholarships and instruction,” Gilley said. “I have asked the committee to propose actions that will decrease general administrative expenses by $6.5 million by fiscal year 2002 and every year thereafter.”
The cuts, amounting to 10 percent of UT’s administrative expenses, would be reinvested in instruction, research, scholarships and assistantships, he said.
“We believe these reductions can be accomplished through turnovers and reassignments,” Gilley said. “We must reorder our priorities and focus our resources on academics. Streamlining the administration is a first step in that direction.”
Other committee members are Dr. Jack Britt, vice president for agriculture; Dr. Dwayne McCay, vice president of the UT Space Institute; Jack Williams, vice president for development and alumni affairs; Philip Scheurer, senior vice chancellor for business and finance at UT-Knoxville; Dr. Warren Neel, UT-Knoxville dean of business administration; Dr. Katie High, associate senior vice president; and Dr. Charles Moss, senior associate vice president.
Jeff Smith, deputy director for operations at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, will assist the group as a loaned executive from Battelle Memorial Institute. Gilley said Smith is “an expert in reengineering organizations who played a major role in developing the winning ORNL proposal.”
The partnership of UT and Battelle recently won the management contract for Oak Ridge National Laboratory.