Lessons paused to address budget
Ruben Hamming-Green | October 12Instructors and TAs took a stand Thursday and told their students what they see as failed administrative decisions: budget cuts, rising tuition rates and University privatization. Liza Minno Bloom, a member of Graduate Employees Together, said the discussions were part of the National Day of Action to Defend Public Education, a campaign to raise awareness. “People don’t know the severity of the budget cuts,” she said. “Right now, it’s a 3.2 percent budget cut. … Next year they’re proposing a 5 percent budget cut. That’s massive. That’s going to be pretty devastating, and people don’t know about it.” Minno Bloom said some people have a misperception of how severely cuts will affect academics. “(The administration) really framed discussions as if we had to have 3.2 percent cuts across the board,” she said. “There are other more creative ways I think we could be solving some of the budget problems without going to academic lines.”