How is the University of Illinois campus feeling the state budget cuts?
Here are 20 examples, big and small:
Academically speaking
► Freshman Discovery: This program, offering classes taught by top professors and capped at 20 students, was put on hold in early 2016. It had been dwindling in recent years due to declining budgets, with just 50 courses offered last fall compared to 234 in 2002-03. The move saved the campus about $500,000, as it was reimbursing departments for the professor's teaching time.
Departments felt they could continue to offer some of the courses without campus funding.
► Math: Because it had to cut the number of instructors, the department eliminated 30 course sections. That's meant some upper-level classes have doubled or tripled in size. "Small" classes may now have 60 students. Math 285, the differential equations course, now has more than 200, rather than 70 or 80.
"It's the kind of thing nobody really enjoys," says Department head Matthew Ando. "It's hard on the students and hard on the faculty."
Read more: http://www.news-gazette.com/news/local/2016-12-11/how-ui-campus-feeling-state-budget-cuts.html