To meet its share of a $47 million budget cut, UF's College of Liberal Arts and Sciences will reduce its foreign language offerings, lay off more than 30 faculty and staff and eliminate three Ph.D. programs.
The $5.97 million cut amounts to 6 percent of CLAS' budget. The Board of Trustees, UF's highest governing body, will vote on the budget proposal Wednesday morning.
The 6 percent cut has to be taken by July 1, which is the same day Paul D'Anieri, currently a University of Kansas official, becomes the college's new dean.
Every UF unit is also shouldering a 6 percent budget cut, but CLAS' share is the second-largest dollar amount and carries the greatest faculty cost - nearly 80 percent of UF's faculty layoffs come from CLAS.
The faculty layoffs stem mostly from the closing of the Korean and Vietnamese language programs and the Ph.D. programs in philosophy, French and German.
All of the Ph.D. students as of fall 2008 - about 27 in philosophy and nearly 30 in French and German - will be allowed to finish their degrees.
CLAS will also combine the criminology department with sociology, merge three foreign language departments into two, and combine the zoology, botany and biology teaching departments to save administrative costs.
As news of the budget cuts traveled around the university last week, CLAS faculty and students criticized Joe Glover, interim dean and soon-to-be provost, for using limited faculty input in the decisions, targeting the humanities and languages, and lowering UF's faculty diversity.
"If the interim dean had been a physician, in my opinion, he'd be charged with malpractice," said Chris Snodgrass, a UF English professor, at a Faculty Senate Steering Committee meeting on Thursday.
But UF President Bernie Machen said at the meeting that he was not convinced of any wrongdoing, and Glover continues to defend his decisions.
"I'm very sympathetic to all of these issues, but I think that we had to simply do it on the basis of what's best for the students and what's best for the university," Glover said.
He said he asked the college's Faculty Finance Committee and Faculty Council to advise him on how to meet a 6 percent budget cut. However, both groups submitted proposals that only covered $2 million or $3 million, he said. With these recommendations in hand, Glover said he made his decisions based on which programs had "less productivity per dollar."
But Robert D'Amico, chair of the philosophy department, said he doesn't understand how Glover thinks his Ph.D. program is unproductive.
D'Amico said his faculty members have published nine books and about 150 journal articles in the last two years.
If UF eliminates its Ph.D. in philosophy, it would be one of fewer than 10 institutions in its peer group, the Association of American Universities, that doesn't offer a doctorate degree in philosophy.
Because the current Ph.D. students in philosophy, French and German will be allowed to finish their degrees, UF will not see immediate savings.
The same issue arises with faculty layoffs. Because most faculty are entitled to one year's notice of a layoff, they will still teach and draw salaries for the next school year.
Glover said Machen will decide how to cover the budget difference while faculty members remain at UF for the next year.
As for the Ph.D. programs, the savings are still large because the programs' operating budgets will shrink as no new students are admitted, Glover said.
But some department chairs wonder if eliminating the programs outright is the best move.
David Pharies, chair of the Romance languages and literatures department, which is losing its Ph.D. program in French, said he would rather UF tell him to temporarily stop admitting students. That way, the program's budget could shrink, and it could remain competitive until UF's financial situation is stronger, Pharies said.
Another point of conflict is the proposed reorganization of language departments, which combines most of the languages into one department of "modern foreign languages" and creates a Spanish language and literature department.
Will Hasty, Germanic and Slavic studies department chairman, said he's worried that the modern languages department will be so large that it won't get enough support.
"If you've been around the university for the last few years, one of the big things that you hear about is internationalization," Hasty said. "That all is going to suffer."
Ann Wehmeyer, chair of the African and Asian languages and literatures department, said that her main concern right now is her faculty. Six of her employees are being laid off, all of whom are women or minorities.
"Kids going to (the University of) Florida are not all white," she said. "It took 20 years to build the program. What are they thinking?"
