The Voice - Student Newspaper

ASU cuts 200 faculty members; increases class sizes

By Kavitha Sundralingham
Freelance Reporter, The VOICE

There is commotion within the halls of Arizona State University (ASU) on the outcome of the university's budget cuts and layoffs. ASU might be cutting $25 million from the state budget.

Tuition for current students will not exceed the increase of five percent; the largest source of university funding is the tuition. Though tuition will not be affected, other areas such as equipment, maintenance and technical support will endure the heft of the cutbacks.

ASU's President, Michael Crow, has made sure that tuition will not be affected. However, program fees in the business, engineering, design and nursing schools might increase due to the higher paid faculty in those departments.

The question is, can one of the nation's highest populated universities, with approximately sixty-seven thousand students, afford to cutback 200 employees?

Freshman and transfer students enroll in ASU with the mindset that classes are huge and students are just a number. Now, they are learning that in the spring semester classes will be even bigger.

Students worry about being just a number and they are not keen about how the classes might be set up next semester. In ASU, lecture classes accommodate 300 students but next semester, students might find themselves engulfed in a crowd of a thousand.

The budget cut will clearly affect the students the most. Students are worried that their smaller, focused, classes will turn into just another lecture class with lesser interaction within the students and professors.

The Walter Cronkite school of Journalism might be expanding their strenuous, small and focused news writing classes next semester. This means a class averaging of 12-15 students might increase to over 20.

With demanding, intensive classes that require a lot of time, it will be difficult on the student's part to get the most out of that class and also on the professor's part to guide, grade and provide the best for each and every student.