Students at UNC Wilmington are overwhelmingly appalled about recent news of a potential $4 million cut to the school’s budget.

Last week, UNCW administrators compiled a list of budget reductions as requested by the state legislature. The proposed cuts would eliminate more than 50 university employee positions and student support services during the 2001-02 school year.

If the budget decrease is approved by the state legislature, $125 million will be eliminated from the UNC system.

Immediately, talk of the budget reduction became a popular topic of discussion throughout the Wilmington campus. Many students expressed outrage over the contentious decision.

“We’re still a small university,” sophomore Jonathan Scholten said. “Taking this cut is taking a step in the wrong direction. How is this at all going to improve our school?”

That question was on the minds of several prominent administrators last week looking for answers. “The effect of this is an overall negative impact on the sense of progress at an institution,” UNCW Chancellor James Leutze said. “It makes people think ‘is this where I want to work? Is this the kind of uncertainty that I want to go through? Am I going to stay here and hope that my job doesn’t get cut? Am I going to stay here and hope that I get a raise?’ This is not a healthy kind of atmosphere.”

Leutze also wrote a letter to UNC President Molly Broad expressing his discontent with the legislature’s decision last week. Throughout the letter, Leutze defended the school’s current budget and growth pattern.

Students were grateful for Leutze’s comments. “Thanks to Chancellor Leutze for sticking up for our school,” Scholten said. “It’s nice to see him taking action for the advancement of our school. Thanks Jim!”

UNCW Provost John Cavanaugh indicated the reduction would affect the entire campus, not just certain departments. “There is no division on this campus that is not touched directly by the proposed cuts,” he said. “Nobody escapes.”

Mike Edelman, a music major from Garner, had those thoughts on his mind when he heard about the possible cutbacks. “I hope the music program doesn’t get any cuts,” the freshman said. “It has me kind of worried because the school will not grow to be as good as it could be.

“I’m real happy with the school. I’m happy I came here. I hate to see it lose everything it has going for it.”

Other students view the cuts as a crisis UNCW should have been prepared for. “Maybe if UNCW had budgeted in previous years – i.e. no plasma-screen TV on Alderman’s walls and not trying to grow too big, too fast – all this would not have been a problem,” junior Noah Scribner said. “Possibly, the school was too lavish in giving gifts to movie studios and pro basketball teams when it should have been concerned with its main purpose – the students and their education.”

Current student body president Katie Russell indicated the state government is the one who should have designed its education budget better. “I was very surprised and alarmed that the budget they had planned had come to a point to where they need (to take) money from the schools,” she said. “I was not aware that we were that bad off in the General Assembly.”

Senior Chip Walton recognized both sides of the issue. “We’re heading toward a recessionary time,” said Walton, a native of Apex. “I understand what’s happening and where it’s coming from.”

Walton, a marine biology and business-finance double major, said he understands the reduction and feels time will heal wounds from the reductions. “It’s not unreasonable to think that the school’s going to make cutbacks,” he said. “I hope they can manage these cutbacks without affecting the students. I’m certainly not happy this happened; however, I don’t think it’s the end of the world either.”

News Editor Dan Guy contributed to this article.