Tue, Sep 21, 2010
School Has The Program On Elimination List
The nationally accredited aviation
program at St. Cloud State University in Minnesota is in danger of
being eliminated due to the school's budget woes.
The program is on a list of tracks that are part of $14 million
in budget cuts proposed by the school for its 2012 fiscal year. The
program also makes up about 25 percent of the activity at St. Cloud
Regional Airport.
The university sent out layoff notices to the tenured faculty in
the aviation program last week, which meets a deadline for the
action. The notices can be rescinded, but they could not be issued
past September 20th, 2010. The cuts were announced in August.
The St. Cloud Times reports that the program is the only
nationally accredited aviation track near a large number of
aviation-related industries in the Upper Midwest. Near the
university are six major ATC facilities, several national guard
units, the hub of a major airline, two aircraft manufacturers, and
the University of Minnesota aeronautical engineering program. It is
also one of the oldest such programs in the country, established in
1930.
The university says the program ran a deficit of over $250,000
last year, and has the smallest enrollment of any of its
departments in the College of Science and Engineering. But the
university is reportedly hearing from numerous industry and
community leaders who say the program is worth saving, and there is
a plan under discussion to have the aviation program absorbed by
the G.R. Herberger College of Business.
Devinder Malhotra, Provost and VP for Academic Affairs, said
that University President Earl H. Potter III had not yet made a
final decision on what he described as a "complex" issue.
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