Glee and Gloom as University Classes Begin : SDSU: The budget crisis and anger at President Day keep student and faculty spirits at their lowest in years.

Clouds hung over the first day of classes at San Diego State University on Monday, and they had nothing to do with the weather.

The state budget crisis and tensions between the faculty and SDSU President Thomas Day dampened the spirit of frivolity that has marked opening days of past years.

Sure, returning students kibitzed with friends they hadn’t seen since May, and men and women checked each other out in the quad between the library and student shops.

But the seriousness of the state’s educational crisis hit home immediately--merely in the fact that students had an easier time finding parking spots.

The number of new and returning students is at its lowest level in years, more than 2,700 below last fall, considered largely the result of publicity about canceled classes, fewer programs and fired professors. There are 1,000 fewer freshmen alone this year.

About 29,700 students were on campus Monday. Peak enrollment reached more than 35,000 in the mid-1980s.

Those shuffling off to class knew that things are different this year--and perhaps for years to come.

“My professors were trying to keep things upbeat, to keep morale going,” senior Chris Valencia said between classes. “But they warned that there could be more cuts.

“It’s kind of depressing when everyone has always pushed education as the (ticket) to a good future,” he said, “and now you have to hope that there still will be a payoff.”

No payoffs were in sight for students in the nine departments Day has targeted for elimination at semester’s end as part of his controversial budget cuts--or for the 146 tenured and tenure-track professors whose jobs are on the line.

The 14 students signed up for German 505, Applied German Linguistics, learned from Prof. Mary Wauchope that the high-level course will be taught more in English than German this semester, even though most take the course for the language practice.

Because this fall may be the last chance for anyone to take the class, the German department has relaxed the prerequisites for entry, meaning there will be students who cannot keep up with an all-German presentation.

That wasn’t good news for Rollie Legaspi, who has completed the requirements for his German minor but wanted more practice. His major, aerospace engineering, is also ticketed for elimination, so Legaspi has switched to mechanical engineering, meaning he will have to spend an additional year fulfilling requirements in the new major.

“I was pretty angry,” he said. “A couple of friends have transferred to Cal Poly Pomona,” which still offers the aerospace major.

In her beginning German 101 class, Wauchope warned about 40 students crammed into a windowless room that their initial stab at German could be their last unless they can find time to continue studying the language at a community college in the spring.

In Health Sciences 362, the entire class of 45 students--several forced to sit on the floor--agreed with Prof. Warren Boskin when he told them he had voted with a majority of the faculty last week to ask for Day’s resignation.

Juniors Gail Alveti and Sheedonna Merritt said they will probably transfer to another California State University campus unless Day agrees to rescind his planned elimination of the health sciences department.

Almost all 30 students in Ronald Himes’ anthropology linguistics class are seniors who will be able to graduate and fulfill all the courses needed for their anthropology major. But they are nonetheless bitter that the department is expected to be eliminated.

“It’s really destroyed my confidence in this university,” Doug Paulson said. “If I weren’t three classes away from graduating, I’d get out of here right away.”

Even for students in the majority of departments not affected by the cuts, the message was somber.

“You all should realize that the cutbacks in higher education have been dramatic and that we’re on a downward spiral in the state of California,” sociology professor John Weeks--who transferred to the geography department as part of massive cuts in sociology--told his new class.

A hundred geography students riveted their attention on Weeks as he pleaded for student action to help save the state’s higher education system. Nary a whisper or shuffle of papers disrupted his remarks.

Day was out of town Monday at a conference of CSU presidents in Northern California. But the news from Sacramento was not good for faculty members hoping to persuade him to rescind all of his cuts for the entire academic year.

The tentative state budget calls for an 8.8% cut in CSU money for 1992-93, more than the 6.5% that CSU Chancellor Barry Munitz hoped for. Munitz had promised to stop all tenured-faculty layoffs for the academic year if the budget cuts were held to 6.5%.

But individual colleges at SDSU are trying to come up with alternatives to the drastic layoffs and department eliminations planned by Day.

Professors in the College of Arts and Letters met Friday and established two committees to recommend different ways of cutting about $2 million from their budget. Dean Paul Strand told the group he believes they can accomplish the task without layoffs or eliminating academic programs.

Last week’s faculty vote to demand Day’s firing by the CSU Board of Trustees resulted in large part from the feeling that Day failed to consult with professors before announcing his cuts in May.

Munitz told The Times on Friday that Day must work to regain the trust of faculty, in part through allowing the type of discussion being pushed by the College of Arts and Letters, if Day is to turn around the campus mood and keep his job.