UT-Austin students: 'They say cut back, we say fight back'

About 100 University of Texas at Austin students came to the Capitol Wednesday and gave a new meaning to their battle cry "Texas Fight."

Before the Senate Finance committee began, the college students chanted, "They say cut back, we say fight back," and "Hey, Hey you fools, this state is run by public schools." The committee heard from UT President Bill Powers, who laid out his priorities for the session.

Powers asked lawmakers to consider productivity measures, re-evaluate formula funding and protect the Competitive Knowledge Fund, which gives incentives for research. He said that the university was facing a totally different atmosphere than in 2009.

"We're now facing a head wind instead of a tail wind," Powers said.

Students, for the most part, seemed to have a different take on the cuts.

Some of the signs the students had messages, such as "Take the Power out of the Tower" and "Chop from the top," which depicted the iconic UT Tower with scissors chopping near the clock.

"Why do new buildings crop up, when public education access falls?" said Bernardino Villase�or, an senior in ethnic studies, an area that the university may cut back. "The answer is the people in this building."

The handful of students who faced the committee passionately asked for lawmakers not to make cuts to the university's budget. For the most part, students seemed focus on keeping areas of study, such as liberal arts, and increasing the access to public education. They were not necessarily concerned with research or faculty retention.

With a $27 billion shortfall, few areas of the state's budget have been spared from proposed cuts. Powers recognized that UT would experience some pain, which he said he has been preparing for.

Taylor Dunn, a UT european studies senior from Dallas, told the committee that she wants Texas to value education from more than a productivity standpoint.

"It's important to emphasize qualitative, beyond the metrics of efficiency, or as Bill Powers kept saying rate of return," Dunn said.

Powers told the lawmakers that every dollar invested in the university gives back $18 in return.

Source: http://trailblazersblog.dallasnews.com/archives/2011/03/ut-austin-students-they-say-cu.html

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