Because The Cornell Daily Sun is an influential news source on campus and beyond, I was troubled to see several factual errors in last week’s reporting on the Theatre, Film and Dance budget reduction. Those errors, as well as conjecture in the two articles, seem to have informed much of the reasoning in last Thursday’s editorial on Reimagining Cornell. I feel compelled to write about Cornell’s critical challenge to honor excellence and breadth in our offerings, but within the financial constraints recently imposed on universities across the country. It is essential to start by clarifying the request to Theatre, Film and Dance.

A School of Public Policy could be in Cornell’s future if the University decides to implement the recommendations of the Social Sciences Task Force Report. The report, released on Nov. 5, focuses on improving the quality of Cornell’s social sciences while simplifying the departments’ complicated and dispersed organizational structure.

At the beginning of December, the University will say goodbye to the Physical Sciences Library in its current form. But the facility — one of the victims of last semester’s 5 percent across-the-board budget cuts — may be the first of many library facilities that closes its doors.

Although the College of Engineering’s task force report deems the college to be a “significant net contributor” to the rest of the University, the college aims to slash its budget by 15 percent.

Though many of the “Reimagining Cornell” academic task forces released earlier this month call for major overhauls of some academic programs, the School of Industrial and Labor Relations Task Force report does not recommend any changes to its academic programs, faculty levels or students services.

As the country faces its most serious economic recession in years, the rate of young, well-educated professionals settling in Upstate New York is reaching critically low levels, creating a brain drain in the region, according to some University faculty members.

About 15 members of Cornell’s staff, faculty and students gathered in Duffield Hall yesterday afternoon to eat “Brown Bag” lunches as part of a series to facilitate dialogue about the University's strategic planning initiative, “Reimagining Cornell.”

Faculty members who had been eager to see the University’s strategic planning task force reports got their wish last Friday when Provost Kent Fuchs released the documents to the public. Most faculty members have praised the decision as a giant step towards greater transparency in the “Reimagining Cornell” process. According to the Dean of Faculty’s Office, approximately 27 people have read the reports thus far — at least 13 of whom were University faculty members.

The University announced yesterday –– just two days before members of Cornell’s Board of Trustees gather in Ithaca for their quarterly meeting –– a massive restructuring of the administration that could trim Cornell’s projected $135 million budget deficit by over $2 million annually.

As students headed home for Fall Break last Thursday night, the University boasted some good news: By centralizing the process of buying goods and services, Cornell could save up to $40 million annually. We are pleased that the administration has found the means to cut $40 million from the procurement budget, but the University must take further steps to maintain that these cuts do not affect academic spending.