Post by FIUPantherFan on May 23, 2008 20:52:02 GMT -5
The fall out from the state budget cuts continue, no University is going to go unscathed, I hope the right decisions are made for the future of the school.
From the Miami Herald...www.miamiherald.com/news/miami_dade/v-print/story/543918.html
FIU may cut jobs, degrees
BY OSCAR CORRAL
Florida International University has proposed eliminating 17 undergraduate and graduate degree programs, including some related to teaching, nursing and engineering, and laying off scores of employees in an effort to cope with deep budget cutbacks from the state Legislature.
The school presented its plan Thursday before an overflow crowd of more than 700 at the University Park campus's Graham Center that included students, faculty and staff, some of whom showed up to protest. The cuts include layoffs of 176 people over the next three years, and the elimination of a further 100 positions through attrition and job vacancies.
FIU's Board of Trustees will take a final vote on the plan June 12. FIU must cut $14 million from its budget, in addition to $10 million in cuts already implemented earlier this year. Among the colleges that will face the deepest cuts: engineering, nursing and health sciences and education.
Concerned students carried placards Thursday to denounce the elimination of degree programs. FIU's College of Education, which produces half the new recruits annually for Miami-Dade County Public Schools, would eliminate degrees for English, math, science, social studies and exercise science teachers.
''It is very disappointing that a university that is so young, that has performed extraordinarily with limited funding, will have to be pared back significantly from where it is now,'' said FIU President Modesto ''Mitch'' Maidique. ``This is not a one-year problem, or a two-year problem. We see this pressure increasing over a period of time.''
FIU, the largest university in South Florida with 38,000 students, is already turning away hundreds of qualified local students, a problem expected to worsen over the long term.
SCHOOL NOT ALONE
Other state universities are facing similar cuts, and tuitions are rising. The University of Florida, for example, recently approved a plan to lay off 400 people and reduce enrollment by up to 4,000 over the next four years.
Students at FIU and recent alumni are livid that the degrees they chose are facing elimination. One of them is Mariam De La Rosa, 21, who graduated with an industrial engineering degree three weeks ago and doesn't want to see it devalued.
''Our degree is going to be practically worthless,'' De La Rosa said. ``When employers or graduate schools look at our résumé, they'll think the department was eliminated because it was not good, not because of budget cuts. I'm very frustrated, very insulted.''
De La Rosa and other students and alumni have launched an online initiative on Facebook to save the school. Already, almost 600 people have signed the petition, which organizers plan to send to Gov. Charlie Crist.
Staff and faculty in the industrial engineering department say the decision to cut their program came as a shock, and was made without consulting them. Industrial engineering is a popular area of study, with 300 students currently enrolled in undergraduate or graduate level programs. Currently enrolled students would be able to finish their degrees over the next three years, after which the faculty and staff would be laid off, said Martha Centeno, associate professor in industrial engineering.
Centeno said the College of Engineering will present an alternative plan to cut costs in a more targeted manner that would spare industrial engineering. Two other engineering programs, environmental urban systems and technology management, are also on the chopping block.
''For us it was shocking,'' Centeno said. ``We have a very strong, and very good program.''
Cuts to the education department will aggravate an already chronic shortage of qualified teachers locally, said Hilary Landorf, a professor in FIU's Department of Curriculum and Instruction.
''Cuts in the budget at FIU will create serious and long-term consequences for education in Miami-Dade County,'' concerned faculty members from the the education department said in a written statement. ``The administration at FIU proposes to replace these initial teacher-preparation programs (both Masters and undergraduate) with a five-week certification program. It's like they think teaching skills are the same as those needed to work in Macy's or McDonald's.
``Miami is losing a precious resource.''
PHASEOUT COMING
FIU Professor Noma Anderson, who chairs the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, said her department will be phased out in the next two years, after which the staff and faculty will be laid off. Her department runs the only speech pathology program in the United States that prepares graduates to work in English, Spanish and Creole. Speech pathologists work with people with disorders such as stuttering, children with autism and adults recovering from strokes.
Other nursing programs facing elimination are health information management and health sciences degrees.
Anderson, who is the immediate past president of the 130,000-strong American Speech-Language Hearing Association, said the decision is heartbreaking.
''It's very disappointing given the severe shortages of speech-language pathologists and the excellence of our program,'' she said.
Maidique said the cuts were proposed after the deans consulted with the provost. None of them are easy to make, he said.
''I don't believe in dark days. I believe in different days,'' he said. ``What it means is, we are going to have to do business in a different way than we have done before.''
From the Miami Herald...www.miamiherald.com/news/miami_dade/v-print/story/543918.html
FIU may cut jobs, degrees
BY OSCAR CORRAL
Florida International University has proposed eliminating 17 undergraduate and graduate degree programs, including some related to teaching, nursing and engineering, and laying off scores of employees in an effort to cope with deep budget cutbacks from the state Legislature.
The school presented its plan Thursday before an overflow crowd of more than 700 at the University Park campus's Graham Center that included students, faculty and staff, some of whom showed up to protest. The cuts include layoffs of 176 people over the next three years, and the elimination of a further 100 positions through attrition and job vacancies.
FIU's Board of Trustees will take a final vote on the plan June 12. FIU must cut $14 million from its budget, in addition to $10 million in cuts already implemented earlier this year. Among the colleges that will face the deepest cuts: engineering, nursing and health sciences and education.
Concerned students carried placards Thursday to denounce the elimination of degree programs. FIU's College of Education, which produces half the new recruits annually for Miami-Dade County Public Schools, would eliminate degrees for English, math, science, social studies and exercise science teachers.
''It is very disappointing that a university that is so young, that has performed extraordinarily with limited funding, will have to be pared back significantly from where it is now,'' said FIU President Modesto ''Mitch'' Maidique. ``This is not a one-year problem, or a two-year problem. We see this pressure increasing over a period of time.''
FIU, the largest university in South Florida with 38,000 students, is already turning away hundreds of qualified local students, a problem expected to worsen over the long term.
SCHOOL NOT ALONE
Other state universities are facing similar cuts, and tuitions are rising. The University of Florida, for example, recently approved a plan to lay off 400 people and reduce enrollment by up to 4,000 over the next four years.
Students at FIU and recent alumni are livid that the degrees they chose are facing elimination. One of them is Mariam De La Rosa, 21, who graduated with an industrial engineering degree three weeks ago and doesn't want to see it devalued.
''Our degree is going to be practically worthless,'' De La Rosa said. ``When employers or graduate schools look at our résumé, they'll think the department was eliminated because it was not good, not because of budget cuts. I'm very frustrated, very insulted.''
De La Rosa and other students and alumni have launched an online initiative on Facebook to save the school. Already, almost 600 people have signed the petition, which organizers plan to send to Gov. Charlie Crist.
Staff and faculty in the industrial engineering department say the decision to cut their program came as a shock, and was made without consulting them. Industrial engineering is a popular area of study, with 300 students currently enrolled in undergraduate or graduate level programs. Currently enrolled students would be able to finish their degrees over the next three years, after which the faculty and staff would be laid off, said Martha Centeno, associate professor in industrial engineering.
Centeno said the College of Engineering will present an alternative plan to cut costs in a more targeted manner that would spare industrial engineering. Two other engineering programs, environmental urban systems and technology management, are also on the chopping block.
''For us it was shocking,'' Centeno said. ``We have a very strong, and very good program.''
Cuts to the education department will aggravate an already chronic shortage of qualified teachers locally, said Hilary Landorf, a professor in FIU's Department of Curriculum and Instruction.
''Cuts in the budget at FIU will create serious and long-term consequences for education in Miami-Dade County,'' concerned faculty members from the the education department said in a written statement. ``The administration at FIU proposes to replace these initial teacher-preparation programs (both Masters and undergraduate) with a five-week certification program. It's like they think teaching skills are the same as those needed to work in Macy's or McDonald's.
``Miami is losing a precious resource.''
PHASEOUT COMING
FIU Professor Noma Anderson, who chairs the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, said her department will be phased out in the next two years, after which the staff and faculty will be laid off. Her department runs the only speech pathology program in the United States that prepares graduates to work in English, Spanish and Creole. Speech pathologists work with people with disorders such as stuttering, children with autism and adults recovering from strokes.
Other nursing programs facing elimination are health information management and health sciences degrees.
Anderson, who is the immediate past president of the 130,000-strong American Speech-Language Hearing Association, said the decision is heartbreaking.
''It's very disappointing given the severe shortages of speech-language pathologists and the excellence of our program,'' she said.
Maidique said the cuts were proposed after the deans consulted with the provost. None of them are easy to make, he said.
''I don't believe in dark days. I believe in different days,'' he said. ``What it means is, we are going to have to do business in a different way than we have done before.''
