Faculty Executive Committee discusses cuts to UCLA humanities

Facing $5.8 million in budget cuts for the 2010-2011 academic year, the Faculty Executive Committee discussed possible changes to the staff and academic resources in the Division of Humanities at the committee’s Feb. 5 meeting.

This includes a 56 percent cut of the discretionary budget, the majority of which funds entry-level writing programs and first-year language courses, said Assistant Dean of Humanities Reem Hanna-Harwell.

The remaining portion of the $50.2 million humanities budget is allocated to permanent faculty salaries and the faculty benefits pool, funds that cannot be cut, according to Hanna-Harwell.

The Faculty Executive Committee advises the Academic Senate, the board that controls university-wide requirements, like the first-year language requirement.

The division has relied on bridge funding for temporary money for the past and current academic years and will apply for additional funding for the 2010-2011 academic year that would be put toward the $2.3 million spent on first-year language courses, said Tim Stowell, dean of humanities.

Stowell said the division has also appealed to the Chancellor’s Office for funding to put toward introductory writing classes, adding that the alternative to this funding and lower-than-expected bridge money will be “draconian cuts.”

“In the short term, (we’ve) been getting by on bridge funding, but we can’t go on like this forever,” Stowell said.

Though at this point the committee is not considering eliminating the first-year language requirement, committee members are considering increasing its flexibility by allowing students to pass out of the requirement with high school or community college credit.

“We have a lot of college-wide requisites eating up (the budget),” Stowell said. “It’s our deficit, but the (Faculty Executive Committee) controls the requirements that drive the deficit.”

In anticipation of the cuts, the Humanities division issued lay-off notices last July to 65 lecturers ““ temporary, untenured staff who teach classes and run department activities. The layoffs, which require a year of notice before they go into effect, will begin spring quarter, Hanna-Harwell said.

An additional strain on the division comes with a reduced recruitment budget. With recruitment already low, the division is unable to replace positions filled by retiring professors.

“The staff-to-faculty ratio is lower in humanities than anywhere else by a fair margin,” Stowell said.

Individual departments have also been asked to evaluate each major and pair down the unit requirement to close to 45 units.

Administrators hope these cuts will both help to decrease expenditures and reduce the strain put on other courses students are forced to enroll in when their required classes are full, Stowell said.

Graduate students, too, will be affected by this cut, which will provide compensation for fewer teaching assistants.

“Especially in the humanities, being a TA is what keeps these grad students eating,” Hanna-Harwell said.

Students said they are especially disheartened by the decision to lay off lecturers.

On Feb. 1, a petition was circulated among students in the French and Francophone studies department in hopes of reinstating lecturers Laurence Denié-Higney and Kimberly Jansma, who have played paramount roles in the development and facilitation of the department’s programs and curriculum, said fourth-year French student Emily Adams, who started the petition.

“I am just without words, knowing that after spring quarter they’ll be gone, and with them, their classes,” Adams said.

The petition, which is circulating in paper form and online via Petition Spot and Facebook, encourages students to write letters to authorities, including Chancellor Gene Block and UC Board of Regents President Mark Yudof.

Linguistics and German and romance language graduate students have also responded, creating the “The Foreign Language Manifesto,” which explains the increasing demand for foreign languages in light of mounting globalization.

Nevertheless, the university has few options but to diminish the staff to an affordable size, Stowell said.

“We have to downsize modestly to continue to offer quality instruction,” he said.

With reports from Daniel Schonhaut, Bruin senior staff.