Faculty and students at the College of Saint Rose hold a protest over potential budget cuts, which threaten to eliminate several faculty positions and popular programs. Time Warner Cable News' Barry Wygel has more.
ALBANY, N.Y. -- With chants, drums and megaphones, the faculty and students of Saint Rose took to the sidewalks.
"I chose Saint Rose specifically because I knew the professors here actually cared," junior Christina Romeo said.
But those professors could soon be out of a job if the cuts the students and faculty fear become a reality.
"This is a fabulous college, and it has been a fabulous college, and the faculty are your allies," said Bridgett Williams-Searle, professor of history and political science at Saint Rose.
The faculty and students say communication with the college's president has been nonexistent, but they have identified potentially at-risk programs, mainly liberal arts, that faculty says are crucial to creating a well rounded member of society.
"We live in a very rapidly changing economy," Williams-Searle said, "and you need the flexibility of mind that those liberal arts classes actually cultivate."
Faculty contracts stipulate that the school only needs to give them one year's notice of termination, meaning liberal arts students junior year and below may finish their schooling with much cheaper part-time professors, or educators who may be experts in an unrelated field.
"We're trying to stop the process before it starts," Romeo said.
For students like Christina, she says the potential cuts of liberal arts programs will have devastating lasting effects on the college she loves.
"It makes me worried for the freshmen," she said, "that they are not going to know what the real Saint Rose difference was. They are just going to know that we are kind of here as a corporate institution."