SAUL LOEB/Arizona Daily Wildcat UA President Pete Likins showed various emotions during a Town Hall yesterday afternoon in DuVal auditorium. Davis and Likins defended their proposal to eliminate various programs, including the School of Landscape Architecture, which garnered the most opposition from the crowd.

Students from programs on chopping block speak up

Aside from laughs evoked by Provost George Davis' comparing program cuts to rock formations, tension and frustration filled DuVal Auditorium yesterday as President Pete Likins defended Focused Excellence in front of a crowd of 200 people.

For an hour and a half, audience members debated and questioned administrators about proposals to cut specific programs.

Likins and Davis released preliminary proposals last month for the elimination of sixteen programs, including the School of Landscape Architecture.

"(The university is a) seriously impoverished place," Likins said. "This university must stop doing something."

Mark it What: Town Hall with two state regents When: 6 ÷ 8 p.m. Where: Kiva Auditorium in the Education Building

While members of the audience understood that something had to go, those who spoke out didn't agree with the programs chosen for elimination.

Some students like Robert Sharp, a landscape architecture graduate student and former rancher, said the qualities of departments proposed for elimination need to be revisited.

The service the School of Landscape Architecture offers, Sharp said, is needed in the state of Arizona and it "would be a crime to let that department go."

"I don't know how we could try any harder!" Likins said.

But Rudy said Likins' words aren't enough.

"My heart is really in this program," she said.

The landscape architecture school offers the only graduate program of its kind in the Southwest, and also serves communities in the Middle East and South America, a landscape architecture student told Davis and Likins.

Provost George Davis said that while he knows the School of Landscape Architecture is a one of a kind program, it is under-funded.

When it comes down to elimination "schools like landscape architecture rise up on the radar screen," he said.

In their proposals for elimination, administrators said they are re-examining the School of Landscape Architecture because it is a young program that strains the resources of the School of Architecture.

Michelle Rudy, a master's student in landscape architecture, said she doesn't understand why her school is "on the chopping block."

"We need just a little more time to come up with a plan," she said, certain that the school has great potential to bring in funding and research.

After a student rose up and told Likins that funds were being raised, he asked if that would be enough to save the programs listed for possible elimination.

"Gosh, let's see what you can do, but you don't have five years to do it," Likins said. "It's hard for me to imagine there's an untapped source out there."

But he said that the School of Information Resources and Library Sciences, another program listed for possible elimination, had the potential to come up with funding.

We have ideas to come up with the funding and save the school, but the alumni association is not working with us, said Lisa Bunker, a SIRLS alumna.

Representatives of the department of atmospheric sciences, a program listed for possible elimination, also attended the town hall.

One representative asked how administration could justify the removal of a program that brings in more money than it spends.

Likins addressed his concern, saying the elimination is a "redirection, but it is not intended to be a disrespectful rebuke."

Atmospheric sciences, Likins said, will be more effective if you can just get past this change.

This town hall was the second town hall in one week. The next town hall is with regents today in the Kiva Auditorium in the Education building.