Despite SF State’s administration efforts, the College of Humanities will probably have to face cuts of approximately $550,000 next fall. But it could have been worse.

About a month ago, Paul Sherwin, dean of the College of Humanities, sat at his desk trying to figure out how to implement cuts of approximately $1.2 million to the department’s budget without hurting the quality and the integrity of the college -- an impossible mission.

It wasn’t until a few weeks ago that the university’s provost, John Gemello,and President Robert Corrigan agreed to approve some relief measures that will lower those cuts by approximately half.

They will provide the College of Humanities funds to support basic subject and university required classes such as composition, critical thinking, ESL, and Segment I requirement classes, as long as the college manages to keep its enrollment numbers. That would save the department more than $200,000, according to Sherwin.

On top of that, summer classes for the whole university will be funded by the Academic Affairs Department, rather than by each individual college, which means another $300,000 relief for the College of Humanities.

During this last year, the College of Humanities has managed to avoid major cuts in classes by increasing the number of students per class. For this next coming year there will still be a slight increase in the class sizes – maybe 26 students in a class where there were 24 before – but that won’t be enough to solve the problem of a budget deficit that looks to be twice as much as last years.

Therefore, unless there are significant changes, the College of Humanities will be offering 125 to 140 fewer classes next semester than it currently does, said Sherwin. The cuts should be applied evenly among the departments. A given department that currently offers 24 classes would be likely to offer 21 next semester.

But the college will try to compensate for some of those cuts by offering students a larger number of summer classes.

“I believe we had 81 summer classes last year. I’m proposing that we offer 90 to 93 this year,” said Sherwin. “We will be adding classes that we’ve known students have constantly not been able to get into in the past, such as English 114 and 214 and also certain major and graduate programs classes.”

“That does not compensate us for anything because classes cost a lot more in the summer,” said Diana Bautista, a psychology senior. “The Humanities department offers very good classes that gives students a different perspectives of the world. So I think these cuts are a shame.”

“Cutting more classes would make a very difficult situation. There’s already few courses being offered. It’s hard to believe there could be fewer,” said Marc Nassav, a French major.

"But it could have been a lot worse," said Sherwin. The department will have to cut about 12 to 15 percent of classes in the major and graduate programs only. But if it wasn’t for the relief given by the administration, that percentage would not only be higher, but it would also be applied to all classes offered in the Humanities College. That would include all basic subject and university required classes, which accounts for 44 percent of the classes offered in the department, explained Sherwin. “And that would have been devastating.”

“We are going to make every effort possible to provide the classes that students need, specially given the highly favorable response they’ve given to us in terms of their willingness to accept that (academic affairs) fee to support the instructional program (on the March referendum).”

If the March referendum -- approved by 60 percent of the 8,600 votes at SF State -- were approved by CSU Chancellor Charles Reed, it would certainly help the college’s budget crisis. It could possibly lower those cuts by half, according to Sherwin.

“However, until I learn whether the referendum is approved by CSU and if it is, how funds will be distributed in the University, I can’t say any of these numbers are certain, because the situation has been continually changing.”

Even if the referendum is approved, this budget crisis could get even worse in the spring semester when the final budget is passed, said Sherwin. “But as I said nothing is for certain. We have to wait and see. The situation is hard but not devastating,” he added.