Cross: No cuts for NTC

I first started at the Bemidji (Minn.) Pioneer as an intern in the summer of 1996. That would begin six years as a news reporter, sports reporter and copy editor for a small, six-day-per-week daily newspaper in northern Minnesota. I wrote a large range of stories from multiple beats, to features to sports, my favorite being the coverage of the Red Lake Reservation High School basketball team named the Warriors. Here is a collection of my stories from my time at the Pioneer.

Announced cuts of the state's technical college programs by the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities board last week were overstated and misunderstood, Northwest Technical College President Ray Cross said Wednesday.

Due to unknown funding and enrollment figures, the board announced proposed eliminations or scaling back of 197 technical college programs, which would result in layoffs of dozens of faculty members, The Associated Press reported late last week.

However, Cross said few actual positions will be lost, and in reality what will happen is many instructors' teaching loads will be reduced.

For instance, NTC-Bemidji is one campus at which some faculty will have teaching loads reduced -- a situation that is not necessarily even a negative consequence of cuts, he said, because many of the teachers had already been teaching above full loads anyway.

In fact, throughout the entire five-campus NTC system, of which NTC-Bemidji belongs, only one full-time faculty position will be cut. And that position will be cut at the Detroit Lakes campus, he said.

"This is a positive thing for the Bemidji campus because no one is losing their job. No one in even the system, with one exception, is losing a job," Cross said. "This is really the best news that I've been able to give in the five years I've been with the system."

Cross said portions of programs are slated to be cut statewide by reducing portions of teachers' workloads who teach in those programs.

Adding to the confusion were two factors, he said. The cuts would be made only if enrollment figures were down from this year, and a requirement that the MnSCU board make an announcement so early.

In response to both, he said:

* The state's technical college overall enrollment was reported as dropping 4.7 percent between fall 1995 and fall 1996, but Cross said his system has received more inquiries and has more prospective students than ever before -- up 30 percent systemwide.

* The technical colleges operate muck like K-12 school districts, meaning they have to announce any potential layoffs by early April. That is why the speculative announcement of upcoming cuts was made so early in the year, which may only result in upsetting people who need not worry, Cross added.

If the enrollment stays the same as this year or increases, the situation will be much like last year in which many people were worried about losing jobs -- only to have 60 percent of those in so-called jeopardy recalled.

"Our college is receiving its highest interest ever. If everything continues on course, we may need more faculty than we have now in Bemidji because we're adding two programs," he said. "That would bring new faculty on campus, and we may even have a net increase in staff."

The MnSCU Board of Trustees was slated to act on the proposed cuts Wednesday.

"At this point, there are more questions than answers about budgets and enrollments," MnSCU spokesman Jack Rhodes said last week. "This is a worse-case scenario. But exactly what that means, we'll know at the beginning of the fall quarter."