Both the communication and the journalism departments have announced plans to temporarily suspend their minor programs in an effort to increase class space for majors.
The journalism department enacted its suspension on Nov. 14, and students had their last chance to declare a communication minor last week.
Both of the minor suspensions, according to each department, come as a result of the massive budget cuts imposed throughout the UA campus in 2001 and 2002.
These budget cuts have limited the amount of faculty within both departments during a time when each has seen dramatic growth.
In the journalism department, student enrollment is over 600 with only five full-time faculty, said Paul Johnson, the journalism academic adviser.
There are 945 majors and 169 minors in the communication department and 10 full time faculty, said Michael Dues, the head of the communication department.
With few faculty members and an increase in students, each department has been forced to offer fewer sections of classes.
Jim Shockey, associate dean of instruction for SBS, said that although communication and journalism have grown faster than Social and Behavioral Sciences had ever expected, they are doing their best to provide for students within the departments.
"The provost office is doing everything they possibly can to help our college maintain the number of courses to meet the demand of student enrollment," Shockey said.
A decrease in available classes has been challenging for communication and journalism students, especially juniors and seniors trying to graduate on time.
"I only got into one class next semester, and I only had one class this semester," said John Kline, a journalism junior.
"I'm basically not going to graduate on time and I'm forced to take another semester," he said.
Sarah Horton, a communication senior, said that although she is a senior and has first pick of available classes, she was barely able to get the classes she needed to graduate.
"I needed three classes to graduate," Horton said. "And I had an extremely hard time getting into them, and I'm supposed to have priority."
Horton said that she finally got into the classes she needed because she has a child.
"It was kind of through my bargaining that I got in," Horton said.
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She said she was one of two students let into the section off of a waiting list of 20 people.
Crystal Cazale, a communication senior minoring in journalism, said she understands the importance of giving majors priority over minors.
"It's a good thing that this is happening," Cazale said. "But it's too bad that people won't have the option of the journalism minor for a while."
Dues said that the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences is facing problems because funding does not match the sizes of the departments.
According to Dues, the communication department is allocated less than 3 percent of the budget within SBS. But communication students make up 18 percent of the college.
Johnson said that journalism also brings in a substantial amount of revenue to the university in tuition, but that the department itself does not receive funds back that are able to accommodate for larger class sizes.
As of spring 2003, the department had brought in almost $2 million in tuition.
Journalism is the fourth largest undergraduate major in SBS, Johnson said.
"This is not simply a matter of budget cuts," Dues said. "It's an issue of resource distribution on campus, and journalism and communication are the two worst cases in point of that."
"The university just doesn't have more resources," Johnson said, adding that he doesn't think that the department will make any other major changes to compensate for the lack of adequate funding.
Both Dues and Johnson said that the elimination of the minor was not a choice that came easily for either department.
"This is going to be personally painful as well as disappointing," said Johnson.
"It is unfortunate," Dues said. "It's a very useful minor. I hate the idea of discouraging people."