Expecting a budget shortfall of $9 million for the 2006-07 school year, Loyola administrators today proposed a major restructuring of the university.

The plan, to be formally presented at the Board of Trustees’ meeting on May 19, would suspend and eliminate 27 undergraduate and graduate programs beginning in the fall. Seventeen tenured and tenure-track faculty members would also be let go. Comments from university members – students and faculty – will be accepted until April 19 on Loyola’s Web site, according to a press release from the university.

“It is important to note that the changes we are proposing to our Board of Trustees are charting a proper course to best serve students as Loyola looks forward to beginning our second century in 2012,” the Rev. Kevin Wildes, S.J., university president said in the release.

“Simply put, we cannot financially afford the current framework of our organization,” he added.

The deficit is being blamed on a smaller than expected freshman class.

According to Wildes, students and prospective students in programs that would be affected are being informed of the decision individually by their academic advisers. Wildes and Provost Walter Harris and the various college deans will also be meeting with students in the coming weeks to discuss the changes.

City College would be dissolved, with some programs merged into the renamed College of Liberal Arts and Natural Sciences and what would be the newly formed College of Behavioral and Social Sciences. Loyola would still have five colleges if the restructuring is approved.

City College would be replaced with the College of Behavioral and Social Sciences. This would house counseling, psychology, social sciences, criminal justice and political science.

A school of communications would also be housed in the new college. The sequences of broadcast journalism and production, film studies, communications studies and the graduate program in communications, however, would be eliminated. Print and photojournalism would be combined into one journalism degree and would be joined in the college by advertising, public relations and sociology.

William Hammel, head of the film studies sequence in the department of communications said, “For once in my life I am speechless. I have no idea (what this means). I really don’t.”

Those programs not cut from City College will be divided between the College of Liberal Arts and Natural Sciences and the College of Behavioral and Social Sciences. Faculty for City College programs would be retained in the new colleges where still needed.

Most prominent in City College, the nursing program would be housed in the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences, renamed the School of Nursing.

Undergraduate and graduate Criminal Justice degrees would be awarded from the College of Behavioral and Social Sciences. Humanities and Social Science would be assumed into new programs in the College of Liberal Arts and Natural Sciences.

The new College of Arts & Sciences would also house the Loyola Institute for Ministry. The name however, would be changed to the School of Religious Studies and Ministries.

Incorporated into the College of Music would be the departments of Drama and Speech and Visual Arts. Both are currently based in the College of Arts & Sciences. The College of Music would be renamed the College of Music and Fine Arts.

Drama and Speech would join the college in combination with the dance department to form the Department of Theatre and Dance.

Programs for majors and minors in the College of Music working towards degrees in music composition, music theory and piano pedagogy would be suspended.

Throughout the university, upper level students would be allowed to finish their degrees.Also dropped from the College of Arts and Sciences would be undergraduate programs of study in computer science and elementary education. Graduate programs in elementary education and secondary education would also be dropped.

Programs for minors in German, Japanese, physics and Russian in the College of Arts & Sciences would be suspended. The Religious Studies master’s program in the College of Arts & Sciences would also be suspended.

The Joseph A. Butt, S.J., College of Business Administration would be renamed the Joseph A. Butt, S.J., College of Business. Its undergraduate programs would be organized into two departments, with programs of study in finance, economics and accounting and management, marketing and international business. Graduate programs would continue.

Least affected, the School of Law would be renamed the College of Law.

“The trustees’ intent in directing this analysis and planning is to ensure that Loyola will responsibly and proactively address our budget shortfalls so that the university continues on its past path of financial stability,” Wildes said.

“We can react, or we can make decisions about who we want to be.”

Daniel Monteverde can be reached at [email protected]. Additional reporting by Ramon Vargas. Ramon Vargas can be reached at [email protected].