ORLANDO, Fla. -- The elimination of several programs at the University of Central Florida was been approved by the Orlando university's board of trustees, Thursday afternoon.
The cuts will affect more than 1,000 students, and UCF says most should be able to finish their majors unless they are just starting out. The affected programs include cardiopulmonary services and radiologic sciences in the college of Health and Public Affairs, engineering technology in the College of Engineering and Computer Science, management information systems in the College of Business Administration, Radiological Sciences, and statistic and actuarial sciences in the College of Sciences. One program, actuarial sciences, will be suspended.
The changes are to be phased in beginning next May could affect up to 37 faculty members.
UCF said the cuts are necessary to deal with a $77 million cuts to its recurring state budget over the past two years. At the board of trustees meeting, UCF President John Hitt said it is important to keep the school's sore degree program intact and that some sacrifices are necessary.
"These are very difficult times, arguably the most difficult in our university's history," Hitt said.
UCF said the cuts will save $4.6 million a year, about 2.5 percent of its total academics budget.
Some professors, such as Steve Shideler, Cardiopulmonary Sciences Program Director in UCF's College of Health and Public Affairs, said graduates of the programs are getting good-paying jobs and asked UCF trustees to consider other options such as online instruction.
"We have a Mini Gold Mine right here that just needs some tweaking," Shideler said.
Critics of the cuts handed out flyers that demand the administration reprioritize by sitting down with faculty and staff and work out solutions to cut expenses while sparing job and program cuts. Before trustees met, some teachers and students in the programs targeted gathered in front of the Student Union to rally against the cuts, calling for an investigation of university finances and blasting administrators for cutting education.
"I think that they are creating the image that this is the only thing that we can do," said Claudia Schippert, an associate professor at UCF's Department of Philosophy. "The president and the provost are on record as saying that they are making this decision for the faculty. They don't really want to bother the faculty with having to decide this themselves, because then we would fight among ourselves. It's incredibly paternalistic, patronizing and offensive."
Students in the radiologic sciences program were especially dismayed considering it is only one of its kind in the state.
"I just felt that this is incredible ... how important this program is to suddenly be cut, especially since it is the only public bachelor of science in radiological sciences in the state," UCF graduate Anne Snow said.
