University of Nebraska-Lincoln faculty, students hold town hall on proposed budget cuts

LINCOLN, Neb. (KOLN) – Currently, more than 300 students are enrolled as students in the Department of Educational Administration at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Come next year, should $27.5 million of proposed budget cuts for the school’s next fiscal year be approved, it is one of six departments that will no longer exist.

“We offer the only PHD in higher education in the state of Nebraska,” Corey Rumann, an Assistant Professor of Practice in the department, said. “Eliminating that would be a huge, huge void.”

Statistics, Community and Regional Planning, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Landscape Architecture and Textiles, Merchandising and Fashion design are the five other departments now facing potential elimination.

Professors and students from each of those departments, as well as other university departments, spoke out against the proposed cuts at a public town hall in Lincoln on Tuesday night.

“It’s important for people to be able to chart their own course,” Abigail Cochran, a professor in the Department of Community and Regional planning, said. “I don’t think we’re really going to be able to do that with the elimination of our program and these other vital programs.”

For many educators in these departments, their concerns are for the students, both current and future.

“I’m not worried about me,” Susan Vanderplas, a professor in the Department of Statistics at UNL, said. “I’m worried about what this says about the state and the opportunities we’re offering the children of this state.”

For some students, a portion of their futures in now on the chopping block.

“You’ve committed to this university,” Robert Szot, a graduate student studying meteorology in the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, said. “To have that pulled out from under you means you have to change the entire way of what you’re doing on a dimes notice.”

The university’s Board of Regents is set to vote on the proposed plan on Dec. 5.

The UNL chapter of the American Association of University Professors will be holding a “Stop The Cuts” rally and petition drive outside the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s union on Saturday, Oct. 25 from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m.

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