The undergraduate programs in the College of Education will not be eliminated next academic year under a draft of a 10 percent budget cut proposal presented Friday by Catherine Emihovich, dean of the college.
"The option of being graduate-only is off the table," she said.
Two graduate degrees will be phased out, however. The college will seek to reduce enrollment in its two undergraduate programs, elementary education and early childhood education, although that plan is separate from the budget proposal outlined Friday.
UF asked the college last month, along with the College of Nursing, to present the pros and cons of cutting their undergraduate programs, which generated protest from students and faculty.
About 600 of the education college's 1,800 students are undergraduates.
Under the dean's proposal, two faculty, one of whom would eventually be eligible for tenure, and two staff members would be fired, and the college would cut about $1.4 million from its $14.3 million budget, Emihovich told about 100 people in the Norman Hall Auditorium.
Four other faculty and staff positions that will be vacant next year would be left unfilled, and eight positions would have their funding shifted from state dollars to non-state funds.
In all, salaries would account for about $892,000 of the savings. Cuts in operating expenses total almost $319,000, while the other personnel services (OPS) budget would be reduced by about $212,000, which could mean hiring fewer or no temporary faculty.
Two graduate degrees - higher education administration and educational psychology - would also be phased out beginning fall 2009, she said, adding that it wouldn't affect current students.
"All students would be able to complete their current degrees," she said. "We would just simply not take new students in."
Emihovich said the higher education administration degree was targeted for elimination largely because a lack of faculty to teach the required classes, combined with no money to hire new faculty, would make the degree difficult to sustain and could even threaten accreditation in the future.
The educational psychology degree would be cut because of low enrollment, she said. There are currently only 17 students in the program, she said.
"I can't afford to keep resourcing that department when I've got other programs where I have 100 students in a Ph.D. program," she said after the presentation.
Also outlined in the proposal was a plan to consolidate three degrees in the counselor education program into one degree. This change wouldn't affect the curriculum and wouldn't save any money, but would allow the program to be eligible for more fellowships, she said.
Emihovich said some faculty may also have to teach different classes or even teach more classes under the proposal.
She said graduate assistants would not see their funding reduced, though.
"We don't wanna cut them," she said after the presentation. "They're our lifeblood."
She cautioned that her proposal is only a draft and said she is looking forward to hearing suggestions before it's finalized.
"What we really need is ideas," she said. "We have really hard choices."
During the question and answer session, educational psychology professor David Miller asked Emihovich if she could rank the cuts in order of priority in case the college received less than a 10 percent cut, but Emihovich said she couldn't.
Miller then offered her some advice about what not to cut.
"I think a lot of people would suggest you remove the layoffs first," he said.
Emihovich is the second dean to publicly present a 10 percent budget cut proposal, which UF President Bernie Machen requested from all colleges and administrative units in response to a possible university-wide budget cut of $72 to $75 million in 2009-2010.
All proposals are due by April 1 to UF Provost Joe Glover, and they will all be made public on April 15, which will open up a period of public discussion until UF's Board of Trustees approves the final proposals in May.
Paul D'Anieri, dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, UF's largest college with about 14,000 students, presented a draft of his proposal Wednesday. Other colleges have presented drafts of their proposals to less fanfare, said UF spokeswoman Janine Sikes.
The CLAS proposal includes cutting about $9.3 million and laying off the equivalent of about 67 faculty and staff positions, according to D'Anieri's presentation.
The proposal would cut large chunks out of the departments of religion and geological sciences and would move the communication sciences and disorders department to the College of Public Health and Health Professions.
The reasons given by D'Anieri for cutting those departments are similar to those cited by Emihovich in discussing possible cuts to programs in her college.
"Both religion and geological sciences produce high-quality research, and geological sciences brings in considerable external funding," D'Anieri wrote in an e-mail. "But both departments yield relatively small numbers of majors and Ph.D. degrees relative to their budgets."
Moving the communication sciences and disorders department was chosen as an option because "it is less central to the core mission" of CLAS, he wrote.
