For those of you who haven’t heard yet, The University of North Dakota is in the midst of a budget crisis. The state has enforced that the University cut millions of dollars from their current budget. The Administration has asked each academic department to propose 4, 8, and 12% budget cuts and will then determine how much from each department will be cut. Graduate programs like Sociology, Criminal Justice, and History have also been cut.

In the midst of these cuts, there has been little to no communication from the Administration to the students. After a group of students put together a petition last week however, there has been some response. The Administration has announced that a few positions are being cut, mostly in the form of voluntary early retirement. The President has also announced that the athletics department at UND will face a $1.3 million budget cut. Some department chairs and deans have decided to hold open forums with their students this week to ensure the students are involved in the process of the cuts and are being informed on the future of their programs.

Although the ultimate issue is of course that the state is enforcing irresponsible cuts that will affect not only the quality of education but also the health of the community overall, the Administration has failed to be transparent about how they will deal with these cuts. Until about a week ago when hundreds of students signed a petition and began to ask questions, many students had no idea that their programs were headed for extreme cuts that might even eliminate them altogether (last year the Music Therapy program was cut entirely and so far in this round of cuts the Integrated Studies program has been cut.) The Student Government at UND is supposed to be the voice of the students, and they have also failed to ensure that the students’ voices are heard in the midst of this crisis. Overall, the leaders of our University have been incredibly irresponsible about how they are handling this problem, and it seems they expected the students to stay silent and complacent while they go about gutting their programs and spending unnecessary money in other places.

So, you may be wondering what you can do as a concerned student or community member. First of all, you can sign the petition that is headed to President Kennedy’s desk that demands transparency and for the Administration to feel these cuts. You can also make phone calls to the President’s Office and voice your concern about the proposed $7 million project ($3 million to be allocated to advertising and recruitment, the other $4 million seemingly up in the air so far) in the midst of this crisis. The programs and quality faculty should be the last places to feel these cuts, as this is a University dedicated to its students and the quality of their education. In the past, liberal arts programs have been targeted during budget cuts, and it will be no surprise when that holds true this time around, despite the fact that UND is a liberal arts campus and holds the prestige as flagship University in the state of North Dakota. These programs need to be advocated for in the midst of this budget crisis if they hope to survive.