In another one of those “let’s eliminate a couple majors to save money” plans, the University of Maine is proposing cutting a lot of liberal arts majors. According to an article by Jessica Bloch in the Bangor Daily News:
More than 200 concerned University of Maine students and faculty members questioned the school’s academic administrators during a public forum Monday about an academic prioritization report released last week that calls for $12.3 million in budget cuts. The proposed cuts would eliminate majors in women’s studies, foreign languages, public administration, performing arts and other areas of study.
If the recommendations of the report are implemented, the cuts would reduce the budget about15.4 percent. The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences would lose about $4 million.
One student complained that the “academic prioritization” report wasn’t really about prioritization so much as just budget cuts:
“When a business enters a crisis, they fix the crisis by cutting employees and cutting costs,” [sophomore political science major Nate] Wildes said, “and reassuring stockholders with an action plan for the future that lays out how they’re going to recoup those losses. We’ve seen no action plan.”
In November, faced with a $400 million budget deficit, Maine Governor John Baldacci cut the state budget by $63 million, across a variety of programs. Maine community colleges lost $1.7 million. The governor took almost $6 million away from the University of Maine System. [Image via]
