UCI Proposals Prompt Strong Reactions : Education: Professors and staff members whose programs would be cut protest. The leader of one budget panel says he has received supportive calls.

UC Irvine professors who face elimination of their programs registered strong reactions Friday to the university’s proposed budget cuts.

Across campus, heads of departments with courses of study on the chopping block questioned whether the proposals would save much money and asserted that the budget cuts would come at the expense of students.

“I think (the recommendations) show a great ignorance,” said Juan Bruce-Novoa, who heads the Spanish department, which may be merged with two unrelated Latin studies programs. “I don’t think the people who wrote this report really understand the fields they are talking about.”

But Dennis Aigner, dean of UCI’s Graduate School of Management, said all departments must try to save money in the financial crisis and that he welcomed the challenge of making sure his school survives despite the economic problems.

On Thursday, two university task forces issued a series of sweeping recommendations to help reduce the 1994-95 budget by an estimated $4 million. The dozens of proposals include eliminating UCI’s teacher credentialing program, its comparative cultural and physical education programs and reducing the number of vice chancellors by half.

UCI has lost about $35 million in permanent state funding since 1990. Since then, university officials have made administrative cuts, used reserve funds, reduced salaries, increased student fees and offered early retirements to faculty and staff members.

In the weeks ahead, five elected committees will evaluate the task force recommendations. These will ultimately be rejected or accepted by Chancellor Laurel Wilkening on or before April 15.

At the UCI department of education, Chairman Alan Hoffer said the programs selected for elimination were hit hard because they had no faculty representatives on the task forces. The committees recommend that Hoffer’s teacher credentialing program be transferred to the California State University system, which is separate from the University of California.

“They took down some of the (departments) they could attack,” Hoffer said, adding that the recommendations to cut academic departments were “ludicrous.” The proposals will not result in saving that much money anyway, he predicted.

Also recommended for closure is the physical education department, which has served an estimated 6,700 students over the last three quarters. P.E. classes are so popular that they are running at or near capacity, and there have been waiting lists with over 3,000 students on them, according to department Chairman Timothy Tift.

“The student population will be the losers of an opportunity to take part in the program,” Tift said.

Although many academics were quick to criticize the recommendations, earth system science professor Ralph Cicerone, leader of the task force that proposed academic cuts, said he received many positive calls of support on Friday from the faculty and staff.

“You don’t usually hear from the negative ones,” Cicerone said. “I’m not supposed to be advancing or defending these reports. We (did) the first step, and I think we did it well.”

“We all take our share” of the cuts, said Aigner, of the Graduate Management School. “I saw it coming. We positioned ourselves well. I’m happy to get on with growing on our own without any increase in state money.”

The task force recommended that the management school be privatized, although it would be allowed to retain its present enrollment, with any future expansion to be paid for through agreements with private enterprise.

Besides the academic proposals, the recommendations also call for some student services and administrative positions to be scaled back. One proposal would cut health services and require students to pay for their medical care out of pocket instead of through insurance from the university.

Dr. Dorcas Eaves, director of Student Health Services, acknowledged that UCI needs to make some changes, but she called the proposal unfair for students and the health care system.

“They’re trying to cut the services for the students, but these are the services we pay for in our fees,” said Rhedis Thomas, 19, a junior.

Many students Friday had not yet considered how the proposals might affect their academic lives, and others were “reactionless,” as Aaron Mukhopadhyay put it. Said the 21-year-old student with a smirk: “They’re always cutting funding! It’s hopeless.”

Senior David Kesselman, president of undergraduate student government at UCI, said students were not represented on either budget task force. There will be student representatives, however, on the committees that review the recommendations. Kesselman said the chancellor assured him that the their suggestions will be taken seriously.

But Cicerone on Friday questioned whether the task force proposals can solve the school’s budget problems. “My fear is that with the budget so bad, even if we adopt all of these recommendations, we will still be in financial trouble,” he said. “We’re not expecting the University of California to be healed for a long time.”