If the University of Illinois has to cut 4.25 percent from its FY 03 operating budget, it will mean a $6.8 million cut for Urbana, a $6.4 million cut for Chicago, and a $482,000 cut for Springfield. These reductions are on top of $13.7 million in deferred maintenance money held in University Administration and $4 million cut from UA spending. “Last year we were able to spare a number of units the brunt of the budget cuts because of their special importance,” Provost Richard Herman said. “These include the library, the Discovery program, general education funding, the Campus Honors Program and the Office of Equal Opportunity and Access. That will not be possible with the magnitude of reductions we are expecting for next year. Every aspect of our activities will be affected.” Actions that might be taken on the Urbana campus:
- Reduce faculty and teaching staff.
- Decrease the size of the faculty by attrition beginning next fall.
- Reduce the number of teaching assistants by such means as increasing class sizes and eliminating discussion sections supporting lecture courses. In the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, these steps may reduce the number of teaching assistants by 10 percent, the equivalent of about 100 half-time graduate assistants.
- Eliminate some lecturer and instructor positions, some in areas of very high demand and economic importance. More than 30 courses and sections were eliminated in the College of Business this year; a larger number would likely be eliminated next year.
- Increase class sizes in more than 225 courses and sections.
- Manage enrollment by directing students to courses and areas with sufficient capacity, eliminate some concentrations within departments to redirect faculty resources to areas of highest demand.
- Reduce support for Freshman Discovery courses.
- Reduce seed grant support provided through the Research Board.
- Reduce availability of matching funds to meet federal grant requirements.
- The number of proposals supported would be reduced, resulting in significant loss of external funds.
- Reduce support for learning technology.
- Discontinue support for the most popular computer-based learning system used in 288 courses by 16,000 students.
- Limit students’ access to learning technologies for doing course work and collaborative work with other students through the campus computer network, such as chat rooms and news groups.
- Close three general-use instructional computing labs.
- Reduce computer support staff by 30-40 positions.
- Discontinue purchasing additional bandwidth from the Illinois Century Network.
- Eliminate the classroom modernization program.
- Decrease support for course development, the Teaching Advancement Board, and the Distinguished Teacher/Scholar Program.
- Reduce staff.
- Eliminate150-200 positions in custodial service, grounds maintenance, painting, landscaping, temperature control response, pest control, mail delivery, building planning and design, student safety patrols.
For ongoing updates about budget cuts, as well as information about cuts at the Chicago and Springfield campuses, go to www.uillinois.edu/president.
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