University of Wisconsin Provost Peter Spear spoke Thursday night at an open forum for students, addressing issues like larger class sizes, tuition increases and cancelled classes due to funding.

The forum, held by the Associated Students of Madison, was scheduled to increase students’ awareness of why these particular cuts were made and to encourage student involvement in the discussion of these topics.

“Many of you are experiencing difficulty getting into classes, and many of you are concerned,” Spear said. “It turned out there were a lot of misunderstandings about why budget cuts were made.”

Spear discussed how permanent budget cuts have increased each year at UW due to deficits in the state budget. In 2001-02, there was a $2 million permanent cut, which increased to $16 million in 2002-03 and $23 million this year.

Each year also had one-time budget cuts ranging from $1.2 to $3 million per year.

“Over this three-year period, we’ve lost nearly $50 million in the university,” Spear said. “Most of these are permanent cuts for the university.”

Spear said it has been difficult to initiate such large cuts while maintaining UW’s high academic standing.

“We’re a world-class university, and we want to maintain that,” Spear said. “Nonetheless, it’s impossible to take a $50 million cut without affecting instruction, and we know that.”

Class sizes were set and cancellations were made using specific criteria, Spear said. Such criteria protected essential student services and instruction, as well as keeping unique programs from being downsized or eliminated.

Spear added UW made an effort to keep courses first-year students need in order to get into introductory courses such as organic chemistry.

However, Spear said some course selections were cut due to higher demand in other areas or because of a lack of funding.

One student at the forum said a Chinese course within her major was eliminated; Spear attributed this to student demand.

“My guess is that Spanish, for example, has a much larger student demand. It wouldn’t surprise me if Chinese was disproportionately cut because of student demand.”

Another participant questioned the degree to which students were consulted in deciding class cuts. Spear said UW students were consulted in an “aggregate sense” by asking deans and department chairs which classes were popular and which were required for graduation.

“I think if we have further cuts, I think it would be a great idea to involve students more,” Spear reported. A student advisory committee within the Provost’s office may be created if budget cuts continue, he said.

Spear and Paul Barrows, UW vice chancellor for student affairs, encouraged students to contact them or visit their offices to voice their concerns about these issues.

“I believe students should be involved in making budget decisions,” Spear said.

Brian Jenks, chair of ASM campus relations, said UW can only “ride its reputation” for so long before its academic status is tarnished by budget cuts.

“We had this forum to start some discussion about budget cuts for students,” Jenks said. “We need to tell state legislators and people at the local level to influence this discussion to support increased state funding for UW.”

Students wishing to contact Barrows or Spear may e-mail [email protected] or [email protected] respectively.