The additional $25.5 million UW-Madison will have to cut over the next two years is already having a major impact on campus, and one of the most tangible ways in which students will feel the cuts is the elimination of 29 for-credit physical education classes after 2012. Everything from fencing to yoga to badminton will no longer be offered through the university. The very fact that so many classes are on the chopping block should be a red flag for students and faculty alike.
Physical education is not the only program suffering from the cuts. The School of Human Ecology’s consumer affairs program is being eliminated altogether. The idea here is that because consumer affairs and pilates are not as important as, say, physics, they are expendable. Although this may be true, there is a real danger in giving each discipline a certain value. English, though a traditional academic study, will never bring in the revenue biomedical engineering does, so is it also expendable?
The fact that these cuts need to be made in the first place is a clear problem, but they will likely not be the only ones this university faces. Gov. Scott Walker’s administration has shown little to no respect for academia, and assuming he is around for another biennial budget, the situation will only get worse.
One of this university’s greatest assets is that it offers such a wide array of subjects. Students that come here sacrifice personal interaction with professors and having advisors that know their names for the dynamic and broad academic experience unique to this campus. It is unfortunate that Chancellor Ward and the rest of the university’s administration have to be put in such a position, but there must be another way around the cuts without cutting out entire departments.
