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Nicholls State University’s budget has been slashed to the point where some fear it cannot be slashed any more.
And with another round of cuts being floated around in Baton Rouge, the university is vowing to put up a fight to stay alive.
Nicholls State President Stephen T. Hulbert announced last week that the university will hold a second town hall meeting Thursday at 5:30 p.m. to address the concerns the university has with the latest round of proposed cuts to education by Gov. Bobby Jindal due to the nationwide economic downturn.
The meeting, Hulbert hopes, will also rally together the support of the University’s faculty, staff, students and the surrounding community to help keep the university intact.
“We simply cannot remain silent,” Hulbert said.
The town hall meeting will be the second of its kind in recent weeks for the university.
A similar meeting was held Sept. 24 in Talbot Theater on the Thibodaux-based campus.
The Nicholls community packed the theater for the first meeting with some spectators even having to watch Hulbert’s comments from a television in the theater’s lobby.
But this Thursday’s meeting will be held in the Peltier Hall Theater on campus, which can hold many more people than the first meeting.
As a result, Hulbert said he is encouraging everyone, public included, to come and show support for the university.
“This affects the entire Bayou Region of Louisiana,” Hulbert said. “We want to engage everyone so that they will not only understand the educational, economic and cultural necessity of Nicholls to the region, but also receive the tools necessary to spread the word to our officials in Baton Rouge.”
In the past two years, Nicholls’ funding has been slashed by 29 percent.
That deduction has forced the university to counter by eliminating eight degree programs, four concentrations and 117 full-time employees.
The latest series of proposed cuts would, if passed, slash $10.8 million more off the university’s state and federal support, which Hulbert fears would further suffocate the university financially.
Those cuts would go into place July 1, 2011, and Hulbert said if unchanged, “18 of the remaining 27 academic programs [will be] at risk – sabotaging the education of thousands, eliminating hundreds of faculty and staff positions, and inflicting economic damage on the businesses and consumers of the Bayou Region.”
Since the latest series of cuts have been discussed, there has been a protest on the University of New Orleans campus, which led to the arrest of several students.
But Hulbert stressed the town hall meeting is not a protest, but is rather a source for getting together the necessary minds and bodies to keep the campus’s already devastated budget intact.
And students have answered the call, turning out to social media like Facebook and Twitter to spread the word about the meetings.
Students have also formed a campus group called “Stand Up,” which will help to offset the cuts.
“We’re going to step up,” senior pre-med major and Nicholls’ Delta Zeta President Cindy Sue Soto said. “We’re going to support the student government in whatever they’re going to do. We’re going to come out and be seen and be heard.”
A press release issued by Nicholls State University last week explained the economic impact the university has on the Tri-parish area.
The university said eight of 10 nurses in our region are Nicholls graduates, as well as four of five teachers.
The release also said that because Nicholls is the only four-year institution in the Bayou Region, some students would opt to not attend college at all if they’d have to commute to Lafayette, New Orleans or Baton Rouge.
To offset the problem, Hulbert said he wants people to contact their state officials to “get their voice out and express their concerns.”
Through the power of the people, the university’s president hopes Nicholls can stay alive.
“It’s time to stand and fight, and that’s what we’re going to do,” Hulbert said. “Ask not, ‘Are you supportive?’ but, ‘What are you doing to correct this problem?'”
Pictured is last Friday’s emergency town hall meeting of students, faculty and staff to discuss budget cut issues at Nicholls State University. COURTESY PHOTO
