KATLYNN BALDERSTONE and NICOLE BARRINGTON

Belt-tightening as a response to spending cuts is already being felt in the fine arts and humanities departments. The loss of administrative assistants and high pressure on teachers to compensate for reduced budgets has put an unfair level of stress on administrators, professors and students alike.

Some fine arts students began feeling the effects of a reduced department budget at the beginning of the school year. For example, when printmaking professor Charles Ringness retired, the university did not hire anyone to replace him. Because the university was unwilling to reduce the number of first-year printmaking classes, since that would affect how many students could enter the discipline, all senior-level classes were merged into one.

With only one teacher and one class time for all senior classes, most in-class time was spent instructing second-year students. More advanced students had to wait until after class hours for help and advice.

The situation has improved since then, with a new professor hired to help ease the workload, but cuts to the fine arts are still a concern for many students in studio art. The pressure is especially heightened in the wake of layoffs to the department’s administrative assistants.

Last November, five secretarial staff were laid off from the humanities and fine arts departments. Rather than having an administrative assistant working in each department, there is now a collective office in the Arts Tower shared by secretarial staff for all the departments affected. Clerical staff were laid off with no notice and the bulk of the student body was not contacted about these events until afterward.

Unsurprisingly, confusion quickly arose in the departments as these secretaries acted as liaisons, facilitating communication between professors and students. With no warning, the very people tasked with communicating with students were removed and no one remained to explain the situation.

This is only one example of how cuts to the fine arts and humanities have negatively impacted the university — so far — and it leads to more questions.

We know for certain that 40 people will be laid off in the near future to help deal with the university’s deficit, projected to be $44.5-million by 2016.

Although departments in the fine arts and humanities are relatively inexpensive to operate, there is widespread worry that these programs are not a top priority in the university’s long-term plan. TransformUS appears to favour commercial research-intensive programs and devalue programs that promote creative, critical thinking and artistic self-expression, programs that make society culturally rich.

In a province with a booming resource-based economy, it seems that a distinct ideology is shaping the post-secondary education system here in Saskatchewan, one that values commerce-friendly education over more abstract knowledge.

Yes, the university has found itself between a rock and a hard place, but the TransformUS plan appears to rob the most vulnerable at the university.

To date, the divisions receiving the brunt of the cuts are in the fine arts and humanities. These programs cannot sustain themselves by bringing in private sources of income, whereas other colleges such as business and engineering frequently garner private-sector support. Should this lead us to believe that these programs aren’t beneficial to the U of S, to the province or to the world?

What will be prioritized as the university evaluates and cuts various programs? Are the current cuts for arts and humanities truly the end for those areas?

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Graphic: Jenna Mann/The Sheaf