PEORIA, Ill. – One student at Bradley University says tensions are “ramped up” as the university prepares this week to announce the final list of cuts to academic programs, in order to cut a $13 million budget deficit.
Faculty and staff have had the last month to respond to proposed cuts in things like math education, actuarial science, ceramics and entrepreneurship.
25 News estimates that under the publicly-proposed cuts, at least 170 students would be impacted.
“He ignored those minors, he ignored those double majors,” student Adalia Yeung said of president Stephen Standifird, to 25 News. “So, in a way, he’s not lying. He did not say anything false. But he did not count all the numbers that were there.”
One more student walk-out is planned Wednesday afternoon.
Illinois Wesleyan University in Bloomington had to do the same thing right after Georgia Nugent became president, and tells 25 News a Bradley Faculty Senate vote of no confidence probably won’t mean much.
“They always seem to be the same way: the faculty saying, ‘If you would only have given us a chance, we would have figured out how to do this.’ Well, experience shows that not to be true.”
Nugent, by the way, is about to step down from that post.
She says doing something like cutting athletics or related programs won’t work, as that is what draws students to colleges. Nugent does say parents seem to be looking more and more at cost, at a time when many colleges are raising them.
