Department heads have started to make the hard decisions. Cutting 4.7 percent out of an already tight budget is never easy, especially when more than 90 percent of that money is tied up in faculty salaries. What, or in some cases who, do you cut?

The biology department came under fire for laying off popular lecturer Fred Montague. The administration reversed the decision, and Montague will stay. This embarrassing lay-off gone awry has probably scared off many departments from similar budget cutting tactics.

As The Chronicle made the rounds last week, talking to department chair after department chair, few mentioned the possibility of lay-offs.

But that doesn’t mean the budget cuts won’t drastically hurt the educational quality of this university.

Sarah Michalak, director of the Marriott Library, has anticipated the budget cut, and as employees left this year, she didn’t replace them.

Attrition, though not as politically sensitive, has the same effect as a lay-off. Many departments reported that attrition, combined with fewer phone lines, paper clips and pieces of paper, will stave off lay-offs for now.

Whether the students have one less educator due to attrition or lay-offs, it still means that the U has one less educator. A smaller corp of educators will lead to less class sessions, which will most likely result in students taking less classes and more students per class.

All of this hurts education and the U in general. These cuts will not result in leaner and meaner departments, they will result in frustration for faculty members stressed by an increase in teaching load and class size, and students frustrated with a decrease in accessibility of needed classes and an increase in class size.

The cuts may also lead to further cuts in each department, since departments get their funding based on the number of student credit hours they collect. If fewer sessions are offered, the departments will suffer a decrease in student credit hours.

Right now, being a department head is not a coveted position.