With less than six months to trim $16 million from UF's budget, UF officials said they are trying to avoid across-the-board cuts, but some programs may be scaled back or eliminated completely.
After spring semester began, UF President Bernie Machen learned that state budget shortfalls would force UF to trim 4 percent from its budget by July 1.
At a Faculty Senate meeting Thursday, Machen told faculty he didn't think across-the-board budget cuts would be appropriate.
In an e-mail interview, he declined to elaborate on other ways UF might reduce its budget, though he mentioned the possibility of taking out a state loan at the meeting.
Provost Janie Fouke agreed that eliminating a small percentage from every program's budget would be devastating. But Fouke said a state loan would also be unsuccessful.
The best way to cut back from UF's budget would be to eliminate or scale back less important programs, she said.
UF will try to preserve the programs that are essential to the future of the university, while pruning the ones that are not as successful, she said.
She said the deans of each UF college are evaluating the importance of their programs.
"The point is that after we go through these cuts, the average value of the university, of all the programs the university offers, ought to have increased because we ought to have found a way to cut the weakest programs," she said.
She said Machen would propose more ideas for the final cuts to the Board of Trustees, UF's highest governing body, at its March meeting.
If the board approves the proposals, she said students could start seeing the effects immediately, depending on the types of changes suggested.
If UF decided to eliminate a program completely, Fouke said she would like to cut it as soon as possible. But if there are students enrolled in a program, the university would have to move more slowly to protect the students, she said.
"I think the students need to know that whatever decision we make, they are in the forefront of our minds," she said.
