San Diego State Plans Sweeping Cuts and Layoffs

San Diego State University officials, struggling with an estimated $11-million funding shortfall, disclosed Thursday unprecedented and sweeping plans to eliminate several core departments, including anthropology, German, Russian and religious studies.

In what were called deep and narrow cuts aimed at trimming 100 faculty positions, several other departments were notified that they would be cut back severely, including French, sociology and chemistry, deans said.

The job layoffs would mark the first ever of SDSU’s tenured faculty and the first of such magnitude in the financially troubled California State University system. SDSU is required to trim 8.5% from its budget for the next fiscal year.

University officials declined to confirm details of the cuts, which were disclosed by professors and the deans of several affected departments. The full scope of the cutbacks remained unclear, fueling rumors that tore across campus Thursday, the last day of spring semester classes.

“We have a lot of unhappy people and rumors spreading like wildfire,” said university spokesman Rick Moore. University officials plan a formal announcement next week, after SDSU’s president, Thomas Day, meets Monday with the executive committee of the Academic Senate, Moore said.

SDSU has 31,000 students, 1,200 full-time faculty members and 4,400 class sections. Day had announced Tuesday that further trims would be made at the university, which was still reeling from last year’s $20-million budget cut.

Day stressed Thursday that he would not confirm or deny particular cuts. No decision on any of the departments targeted for cuts or elimination was final, he said.

“They’re not final until I say they’re final, and I’ll say it Monday, to representatives of the university,” he said.

He added, “One message I want to stress is we are trying to do this in a way that preserves the integrity of the institution, does it in a way where most parts of the institution will not be touched by these very terrible cuts.”

The heads of several departments said they found it hard to believe that a university highly regarded not just in California but across the nation could, in one stroke, do away with the staples of academia, no matter how woeful the budget.

“It’s incredible to imagine a university without an anthropology department,” said Dan Whitney, the department chairman. The department has 14 tenured professors and 150 undergraduate and graduate students.

Several professors also registered personal despair. “After 26 years, to be told, that’s it, buddy, not even a gold watch, well, it’s pretty tough,” said Julian Wulbern, 63, chairman of the combined Russian and German department.