Annually contracted faculty members expressed their concern over budget cuts, which will be made next year, at an informational meeting Wednesday, sponsored by University Professionals of Illinois.

Annually contracted faculty are teachers who are not tenure track and may be terminated because of economic forces.

About 40 people were in attendance at the meeting, in which Bonnie Irwin, associate professor of English, read off the tentative cuts that will be made if the full fiscal year 2002 anticipated budget shortfall of $2.9 million becomes a reality.

Nine adjunct faculty will be terminated

Nine adjunct faculty’s teaching loads will be reduced

Three departs will not fill tenure positions

Two departments will ask faculty to take overloads

Five departments will increase class sizes (mainly general education classes)

Ten departments will be cutting sections or courses

Irwin said the information was comprised from reports from 21 departments whose names will not be revealed.

Also, Irwin said the cuts could vary tremendously from the predictions, depending on what the deans and provost decide to do as well as what the total budget shortfall is in the end.

“If there has to be department cuts, I don’t see why cutting adjunct faculty is the only solution. Why not cut the paper pushers,” said William Miller, professor of English.

Kathy Ryan, instructor in the music department, said, “Our tenured faculty are already working an overload, there is not much else they can do.”

The $2.9 million anticipated budget shortfall was announced by Eastern President Carol Surles in a letter to the university earlier in this semester. The shortfall is based on an overall 5.9 percent, $4.5 million, recommended increase in funding from the Illinois Board of Higher Education.

Sue Kaufman, professor of journalism, said “I really don’t think the whole IBHE recommendation will be approved by the General Assembly and governor. From legislative members I talked to, it seems we are certainly not going to get the whole amount.”

David Radavich, president of UPI, said these cuts are based on a decrease of 1.5 percent in enrollment and in the last two years our enrollment has decreased almost 10 percent. That has really hurt us financially.”

“What we need to do is get out there and really try to recruit students to come to this university. Eastern has a lot to offer,” Radavich said.

Kaufman said, “I don’t think the administration looked at this in a holistic fashion. That is, how these cuts will affect the students. “

Ryan said, “These cuts could mean no more orchestra and no more marching band, which are major recruitment tools. Does the administration realize these cuts will hurt enrollment more.”

“Doesn’t the deficit reflect an incompetence in the administration,” said Tom Schnarre, instructor in the English department. “It just doesn’t make since. They’re cutting experienced staff so that we can go online.”

Radavich said UPI still doesn’t know for sure how many layoffs there will be if any.

“UPI wants to do its darndest to get the budget through the legislature. We will do that with lobbying day on April 4, when we take a group of people up there to to talk to the legislature and we will do it when we testify before the house and senate appropriations committee,” Radavich said.

Donald Crawford, instructor in the English department, said, “Are we going to wait around like we did last year and let (Surles) spend all the money on furniture.”

Charles Delman, professor of mathematics, said, “A lot of these things we are talking about are attributable to administrative ineptitude and when they do a bad job it seems that they never get corrected for it.”

We want to keep this an open process, Radavich said. We want the students to be involved in that process as well.

Handouts were given to the audience during the meeting which included information to help laid-off workers with insurance and unemployment issues.