Profs say cuts affecting classroom - Susan Robertson, Virginia Gazette

Even before Friday’s announcement that cuts in state funding will force 12 layoffs among 31 jobs to be eliminated at the College of William & Mary, two professors told the Board of Visitors this week that the effect of dwindling budgets is already being felt in the classroom. “We really are pushed right now to the limits because of these cuts,” Biology Department chair Lizabeth Allison told the board on Thursday. Allison noted that the cancellation of tenure-eligible faculty searches has forced the college to bring in adjunct professors, or hire professors on one-year contracts to fill in. That, she explained, results in a loss of mentoring, loss of faculty committee work and an overarching concern about the quality of specific majors or academic programs.