University May Cut 600 Fall Classes : Education: State budget problems are expected to erase $12 million from Cal State Northridge’s 1991-92 spending plan.

Under the gun to save millions of dollars, administrators at Cal State Northridge are considering eliminating 600 or more classes and not rehiring a large number of part-time instructors.

While a campus spokeswoman insisted that a decision to implement any cutbacks had not been made, several sources on campus confirmed that such plans are under consideration.

Top administrators declined to discuss their plans for eliminating what officials of the California State University system expect will be about $12 million from CSUN’s 1991-92 budget. The CSUN budget for the present year is about $145.8 million.

“We are very concerned about creating a panic,” said Kaine Thompson, a campus spokeswoman. “Nothing is really settled yet.”

She said CSUN President James W. Cleary has been meeting with advisers to find ways to reduce the 1991-92 budget so that “the least amount of damage would be done to the instructional programs. . . . That is our top priority.”

Thompson said Cleary hopes to announce his budget plans by the end of May, after he’s discussed them with deans, the Faculty Senate and students.

Meanwhile, CSUN last week mailed out fall semester class schedules that list many classes that probably will end up being cut. Most academic departments have determined which classes to eliminate if the state’s budget problems remain severe, but students may not find that out until August when the university issues a class schedule, faculty members and administrators acknowledged.

Most of the deans of the various schools at CSUN referred questions about the class cuts to higher-level administrators, who declined to answer questions.

But Jorge Garcia, dean of the school of humanities, said through an associate that “the best case scenario” would require 500 to 600 classes to be cut. Another administrator, who asked not to be named, said the various departments have prepared a contingency list of 650 to 715 classes to be eliminated.

Albert Baca, president of the CSUN Faculty Senate, said the most severe cut being contemplated is the elimination of 700 part-time instructors. He said such a cut “hits all departments very hard, but severely impacted programs such as in the school of business--where they just can’t offer the number of courses that students need”--would be hit the hardest.

He also said he had heard that 650 to 700 classes could be wiped from the schedule for the next school year. But he said such a decision is still pending.

Few specifics of the cuts at CSUN are known. “There are so many options of what might happen or could happen that people are pretty reluctant to try to forecast the future at this point,” said Paul Kirk, an anthropology professor who is also president of the CSUN chapter of the California Faculty Assn.

“It’s terribly hard on students because they are the ones that suffer the most in this,” he said.

If administrators go ahead with the plans, it would make it even more difficult for CSUN’s 31,000 students to get into classes they need for graduation because choices would be severely limited.

Depending on how many part-timers are not rehired, some departments could lose as many as half of their teachers and others would eliminate many night classes, which are essential for working students, say administrators, students and faculty members.

“You’re going to have the day students in competition with the evening students . . . so you’re going to have a war over the classes,” said Margaret June Brown, director of educational equity services for the school of communication, health and human services. “What else could you call it?”

Student leaders are already organizing opposition to further cuts, which would go into effect at the same time as a 20%, or $156, student fee increase.

“With our fees going up $156 for the year and getting reduced services for it . . . that’s a frustration that we as students have also,” said Michelle Cooper, president of the Associated Students.

The student organization handed out orange flyers on campus that told of the plans to cut classes and warned of across-the-board reductions in health care, library services, counseling, testing, tutoring and financial aid services. Cooper said she had heard rumors that the student health center could be closed.

Thompson would not confirm that those decisions have been made. She did say the campus has already frozen its equipment purchases, placed a moratorium on most faculty and administrative travel, left vacant some unfilled teaching jobs and instituted a hiring freeze.

The cuts were made necessary because Gov. Pete Wilson, faced with a $12.6-billion state budget deficit, reduced the 20-campus system’s budget request for the year by $402 million. Much of that will be saved by imposing systemwide measures, such as not giving salary increases, not adding programs or replacing equipment, and imposing higher fees.

In addition, however, individual campuses are expected to reduce their budgets by about 10%, system spokeswoman Colleen Bentley-Adler said. Some campuses, such as those at San Diego, Long Beach, Chico and Humboldt, have already announced plans for massive reductions in class offerings and in part-time instructors.

The statewide California Faculty Assn. estimates that 1,000 faculty jobs and 11,700 classes will be dropped because of the budget problems. The California Postsecondary Education Commission put the figures at 600 faculty jobs and 4,000 classes.

At San Diego State, for example, administrators have announced that between 550 and 600 sections will not be offered next year and that 400 part-time instructors and 200 temporary instructors will not get their jobs back. Rick Moore, a campus spokesman, said the 10% reduction in class offerings was announced so that students would know which classes they could enroll in for the fall semester. Finding classes will still be difficult for the 35,000 students, he said. “They all have hunting licenses, but I don’t know whether they are going to find seats in classes,” Moore said.

Such problems are now common at CSUN, which eliminated 90 class sections this spring. The loss of 600 classes next year would reduce the number of slots available for students by about 10% and reports of waiting lists with 100 or more names on them already are common.

Cooper, the student body president, said she knew of a student who had already accepted a full-time job, expecting to finish a final class for his engineering degree during night school this summer. Now the class will only be offered in the morning and the student will be delayed in getting his degree.

“I pay for my own schooling and, as a result of the budget cuts, I’ll be here an extra year,” said Mark Gendernalik, a junior sociology major who was handing out flyers decrying the budget mess and asking his fellow students to write protest letters to legislators.

“I haven’t been able to get a freshman speech class in the six semesters I’ve been here,” he said.