Something feels different this time. I don’t know if it’s the pandemic, the momentum of social movements, something in the water, or a combination of all the above, but something about this feels like a potential turning point in our history.

I’m speaking both about our history as a nation as well as our history as a community, and as an institution of higher education.

We have to be vigilant not to “return to normal.”

There’s a lot about “normal” that wasn’t working for everyone, and we have a unique opportunity to truly and deeply evaluate what we do and how we do it. We have the opportunity to build something better than what came before. Shouldn’t that always be the goal?

This is what I’m trying to keep in mind as we approach our June 26 regent meeting to approve a preliminary budget to send to the Unicameral. We are all budget, all the time. I’m not personally on the finance committee but we have been having meetings of up to (but no more than) four regents at a time in order to address concerns around the budget.

The scariest part of working on the budget is thinking about the impact it has on people.

If we end up dropping a whole program, or even part of a program, decisions like that are not easily undone. Whichever way we decide to go, there will be a ripple effect on students, faculty, and staff. We don’t take that lightly.

But instead of focusing on the fear, I like to focus on the future.

We’ve been looking at ways to not only save the school money overall, but ways we can help students save money while they’re pursuing their education. How can we support our faculty as they try to save money for the students? One example is how faculty select required materials for a course. UNO has been assisting faculty who want to revamp course materials so students don’t have to buy a bunch of $150 textbooks. We’re looking into other, more cost-effective ways to access that same information.

We also recognize that we have immensely talented and valuable faculty, and we need to figure out how to pay them what they deserve. COVID-19 has changed the formula on just about everything we’re having to consider this year, but we still should be investing in our faculty.

I think that the pandemic have given both parents and students a greater appreciation for incredible, hard-working teachers. I’m not sure that we’ve seen that same movement on the college level, but I would like to.

All of this is happening in huge messy whirlwind of re-working our budgets. It is a significant time for higher education and the University of Nebraska in particular.

Curiosity is critical. We need to be curious about the best ways to keep everyone on campus safe. We need to be curious about ways we can lighten our students’ financial burden. We need to be curious about what people do when they graduate, how it fits with what they’ve learned, and how to taper curriculum to real-world conditions.

This is valuable to us as a school, but also our society as a whole. Now is the time to look forward, not back.

*Barbara’s thoughts as written by Kate based on weekly (fascinating) conversations.