UI hit hard by budget cuts - Courtney Yuen, Daily Illini

Students may be noticing less printed documents, more streamlined course offerings and larger class sizes at the University this semester. Budget constraints on many of the campuses, colleges and departments have left some areas of study with no other options. Joyce Tolliver, associate professor of Spanish and chair of the Urbana-Champaign Senate Executive Committee said that it has become necessary to rethink how the campus works. “It is already a challenge to try to balance what we’re doing now with the dwindling resources that we have,” Tolliver said. “And I don’t mean to say that we’re cutting into the core academic mission, it’s just that right now we really have to think about ways that we’re going to protect it.” Curtis Perry, English department chair, said about 93 percent of their budget is allocated to instructional personnel and most of the stress of the budget deficit comes from not being able to hire new faculty after other faculty members leave.