UF's Board of Trustees approved President Bernie Machen's plans to shrink the university's budget by $47 million on Wednesday morning, resulting in about 130 layoffs.
The board, UF's highest governing body, also granted Machen a 60-day extension to consult with faculty and department chairs about which programs and degrees should be cut following clamor that decisions were not made with shared governance.
No matter how it's finally carried out, the multimillion dollar proposal will slice 6 percent from the budgets of all UF colleges and units.
Machen announced that the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences will keep its doctoral programs in French, German and philosophy after they were set to be cut.
However, the programs will not be allowed to admit students for three years starting with the 2009-2010 academic year to help cope with the college's $5.97 million budget cut.
Under the revised plan, the CLAS dean could petition the provost to reopen admission to the doctoral programs for the fall 2012 semester after the 2011-2012 academic year.
The change means less faculty and staff layoffs for CLAS, which was slated to lose the most faculty of any college in the budget proposal released May 5.
In the new plan, CLAS will lose 10 faculty members instead of 16, and there will be 13 staff layoffs instead of 17. Two of the faculty layoffs are visiting professors.
Machen said the change to CLAS' plan was made after receiving feedback from faculty, rethinking budget options within CLAS departments and meeting with Joe Glover, CLAS interim dean, and Janie Fouke, UF's provost.
Machen said he is still willing to negotiate more aspects of the plan, but any changes must be revenue-neutral.
Glover said he doesn't know if any more changes to the college's plan are in the works, but they cannot be ruled out since Machen was granted the extension to solicit faculty input on budget decisions.
Though the doctoral programs will remain, not everyone is satisfied.
Matthew Loving, a French doctoral candidate, said freezing enrollment will affect UF's ability to recruit top graduate students to programs.
Loving said with fewer doctoral students to teach entry-level classes, more strain will be placed on tenured professors who should be teaching advanced classes and conducting research.
UF is moving to a community-college model and away from being a leading research institution, he said.
"We know it won't work," he said. "Can we compete in the future? Not unless we make changes."
