The Faculty Senate will weigh in today on whether top administrators should go forward with plans to ask regents to eliminate the School of Planning.
The senate's recommendations won't be binding, but administrators agreed more than a year ago that faculty would be allowed to voice their opinions on plans to eliminate departments if faculty within the affected department objected.
Planning students and faculty, as well as professional planners from around the state, have spent more than a year lobbying regents and administrators to spare the program. They say the school performs a vital public service by assisting communities that can't afford help from professional planners.
President Peter Likins and Provost George Davis initially proposed eliminating the school in January 2003, saying its lack of an outside funding base and the fact that it only instructs master's students made it vulnerable.
Last month, Davis said it was "very unlikely" that the university would reverse course and decide not to push forward with the school's closure.
The program, however, cannot be closed without approval from the Arizona Board of Regents.
The senate meets at 3 p.m. today in Room 146 of the College of Law building.