State budget cuts hurt UMass schools

Over the past year, the University of Massachusetts system has been forced to make cuts to public safety services, academic organizations and support service in order to handle hefty state budget cuts. Perhaps the hardest hit of the UMass campuses has been UMass-Amherst, which has suffered $20 million in cuts this year.

Increased crime at the Amherst campus has been a big issue in the local and on-campus media, according to Adrienne Girard, who serves as chair of the Public Policy and Relations Committee of Amherst’s Student Government Association. During the first few months of the academic year, ‘there have been a lot of rapes and attacks,’ she said.

At Amherst, there have been severe cuts to campus public safety services. ‘I think that’s the [cut] most students are feeling,’ Girard said, noting the campus safety escort service has been cut completely.

UMass-Amherst has also cut certain aspects of academic services and minority support services, which, according to Girard, has upset several students.

Despite these circumstances, the Swift administration dealt another blow to the UMass system on Oct. 12 – a $1.5 million cut to Amherst’s budget.

‘The governor has been aware for quite some time that the commonwealth is facing significant fiscal challenges,’ said Sarah Magazine, spokeswoman for Swift.

When the original budget was submitted this summer, ‘we had anticipated a rebound in the third and fourth quarters,’ Magazine said. But the economy did not rebound as expected and the Swift administration was forced to make $202 million worth of cuts to the state budget in October. According to Magazine, there were no alternatives to the UMass cuts.

The latest budget cuts to the UMass system have prompted Amherst’s Student Government Association to pass Resolution 2002-F21, which states ‘the undergraduate Student Senate expects the next governor will have a greater fiscal commitment to public higher education.’ The Student Government Association wants to ‘prevent any further cuts in the departments of public safety, academics, financial aid, and the support services,’ the resolution continued.

Amherst’s administration has ‘not [had] an easy job,’ although they have put in a great deal of effort, according to Girard.

‘I think [the administration has] mostly been trying to work with students and see what they think should be the priorities,’ she said. Toward the end of the last school year, students and faculty showed a large commitment to helping student groups, she added.

The Student Center for Education, Research, and Advocacy (SCERA) worked with students to form a coalition dubbed Save UMass. Faculty and students from several UMass campuses as well as local community colleges joined Amherst in letter-writing campaigns and held ‘teach-ins’ and other protests here in Boston, Girard said.

Amherst’s involvement in these protests was high. ‘It was awesome to see the whole campus come together [and] disappointing that we got another budget cut on top of that,’ Girard said.

Other UMass campuses have not been as severely affected as Amherst has.

‘We have closed no programs,’ said Christine Dunlap, a spokesperson for UMass-Lowell. According to Dunlap, UMass-Lowell has learned from prior experiences.

‘After the last recession, it was clear that this would happen again,’ she said, referring to the recession of the early 1990s. Describing the round of layoffs Lowell experienced during this time, she added, the chancellor ‘was determined not to lay off again,’ and built up cash reserves during the economic boom of the 1990s.

UMass-Lowell has postponed capital improvements, dipped into their cash reserves and increased their focus on fundraising, according to Dunlap.

Governor-elect Mitt Romney could not be reached for comment as to how he plans to forge relationships with UMass students as Massachusetts’ next governor. UMass students, however, said they were committed to working with the Romney administration in order to improve the situation at state-funded universities.