UA administrators will ask regents to close AIC; faculty, students to speak at meeting

file photo/Arizona Daily Wildcat

The fate of the Arizona International College, which UA President Peter Likins will recommend to close by 2006, rests in the hands of the Arizona Board of Regents. The board, which meets this morning in Tucson, will discuss whether to keep the college open in light of a $13.9 million state-mandated budget cut.

Students, faculty and UA administrators will go head-to-head over the future of Arizona International College at today's Arizona Board of Regents meeting.

University of Arizona President Peter Likins and other top administrators will ask the regents to phase out the college and shut it down in 2006, when all AIC faculty and staff contracts will have expired.

As many as 100 AIC students and the majority of the AIC faculty are expected to attend the meeting.

Five to six AIC faculty and Richard Mahoney, a former Arizona secretary of state now running for governor, will ask the regents to keep AIC open, said Lesley Bailey, coordinator of experiential education for AIC.

Likins decided to ask the regents to close AIC as a way to save money in the face of a possible $13.9 million state-mandated budget cut. The college received $2,259,000 in funding from UA this year.

However, if the regents vote to close the college, four teachers out of 20 total faculty and adjuncts at AIC will lose their jobs in June when their contracts expire.

Also up for a vote by the regents is a plan to begin construction on an extended campus facility known as UA North, which would be built in conjunction with Pima Community College.

Though Likins already attended a groundbreaking ceremony at the site of the new campus, the regents have to approve construction before it can start.

The new campus, which would be located at West Ina and North Shannon roads, would have a 5,300-student capacity and open in 2003, if approved.

Due to a statewide budget deficit, the Arizona Legislature could decide to pull the funding for the project in the current special legislative session, said Joel Valdez, senior vice president of business affairs.

Regents and UA officials will also discuss changing funding for UA athletics, based on suggestions made in the Knight Commission Report.

The ABOR meeting will be held in Peter Kiewit Auditorium of the Arizona Cancer Center, located just east of the University Medical Center.

The regents will hear a call to the audience at 10:35 a.m. Anyone who wishes to address the board should arrive between 10 a.m. and 10:15 a.m. and sign up with Norma Salas, assistant for public affairs for the regents.

The meeting is scheduled to begin at 11:10 a.m.