It happened again today. I received an email that read “We are sorry but we regret to inform you that your sections of both German 301 and 311 have been cancelled.” It went on to talk about alternatives, and how it was a difficult decision, and out of the control of the department, but there just wasn’t enough funding.

This time, the email had a relatively happy ending. The sections would be merged into one class, which would allow the one singular class to count towards both degree requirements. But you don’t always get so lucky.

These are the struggles we’re facing at UM currently. Since fall semester freshman year, while planning and scheduling for the following semester, after I have my schedule set and I’ve registered, I have received at least one email that states one of my classes have been cancelled. So I cry a little bit, sit down, and reconfigure my entire schedule for the next semester, and track my classes to make sure that I’m taking all the necessary gen eds and classes required for my degree.

It’s a constant battle, and it’s an unnecessary one. Every email that tells me a class for the upcoming semester also mentions something about how we “don’t have the funding.” Here’s the thing though: we do have the funding. It’s not a matter of lack of funding. It’s a matter of how the funding is being allocated.

See, I am an English major and a German minor - a traditional liberal arts student. Which would make sense, considering I attended a historically liberal arts university. However, it’s my classes, my departments that suffer under the current financial crisis that UM is experiencing. It’s the liberal arts at Montana’s liberal arts college that fall to the chopping block. The business program, the hard sciences and the pre-med programs don’t suffer - or if they do, they don’t suffer as blatantly and openly as the humanities do.

UM is certainly facing a budget crisis. I’m not arguing that. However, we’re facing a budget crisis partially because we’re facing an enrollment crisis. UM is the public liberal arts school of the state. It’s really the only state school to go if you a quality degree in the arts and humanities. Sure, you have Rocky or Carroll, but if cost is your determining factor, like it ultimately was for me and a lot of other students, those are immediately off the table. MSU, MSUB, and Western offer some humanities degrees - once you take into account what they offer as actual majors, combined they offer the same amount of humanities degrees that UM does -and MSUN offers only one.

So if you’re a student interested in pursuing a liberal arts education, you’re faced with the choice of going to UM, where the humanities programs are suffering hugely, choosing from another state school that has fewer program options, attending one of the private universities and going even deeper into debt that you would have at a state school, or fleeing the state altogether.

It’s a cyclic problem UM is facing: enrollment is down, so funding is down, so classes and programs are cut, so the appeal isn’t there, so new students don’t come in, so enrollment is down…

If UM really wanted to do better for its students, to better its programs, and to potentially increase enrollment, it would stop cutting the classes and programs that make UM appealing to students in the first place. UM needs to reinvest in the arts and the humanities, not continue throwing money at the business program and the sciences in an effort to compete with the rest of the state schools. UM is unique and has appeal because it is a liberal arts school. Focusing on that aspect would likely increase enrollment and get current student excited about school again, instead of dreading the emails that read “we regret to inform you…”

Here’s to hoping I can make it through the rest of the summer without having another class cancellation.