The budget cuts have begun to take their toll on campus life.

The effects can be seen in many areas.

This Monday, 60% of adult hourly was cut.

Hours in the admissions office were cut as well.

And last week, many who tried to attend their 15-week classes were surprised to find out that the class was cancelled.

The same will happen with some of the nine-week classes.

It is worse than last fall and it is not getting any better for summer.

Interim Vice President of Academic Affairs, John Boyle, explains that when cuts in sections offered were being looked at last spring, the idea was to only cut classes with low enrollment, particularly those that were being offered at other times and could be taken then.

The concept was not to turn students away from classes, but merely to fill the offered sections and eliminate those that were unnecessary.

It worked and it saved money.

But this semester they’ve had to take it one step further.

It is no longer just the low enrollment classes that have been cut. Some sections with relatively high enrollment have been cut as well.

“I asked all the deans to identify approximately 20% of sections that didn’t start on Jan. 13 to cancel,” Boyal said.

The reason it is “approximately,” is that Boyal actually asked the deans to identify 20% of their teaching units that they could spare.

(Briefly, teaching units are the measure by which an instructor gets paid for any given course. Generally, instructors get paid more for courses that come with more student units but this matter gets complicated with the introduction of labs and certain subjects.)

In the fall this meant that 71 sections were cancelled.

For spring, 226 sections didn’t even make it to the course listing book, while an approximately 35 were cancelled once the semester had started.

“Those cuts are just starting to be felt,” Boyal said.

Martin Mundo, undecided major, has seen the difference.

“They were only offering one math class,” he said. “I couldn’t even make the waiting list, that’s how full it was.”

Boyal stresses that he and the other decision-makers are trying to make this process as painless as possible for students.

When asking the deans to cut back in their divisions, Boyal gave these guidelines: spare classes critical for transfer, spare vocational classes and spare basic skills classes.

“I’m hoping this will cause the least disruption to the campus overall,” Boyal said.

But it seems the bottom line is that some disruption is inevitable.

Originally, class cuts were not intended to turn students away; it merely was an issue of flexibility.

But now some students will be turned away.

“There are going to be students who won’t be able to get the classes they need,” Boyal said.

For the record, no divisions were asked to make more cuts proportionally than the others: twenty percent for everyone.

And though 20 % may not seem like a lot, it still hurts. It even hurts the people who are making the cuts.

Boyal said, “This is really painful to do…I’ve been a teacher for 29 years. I don’t like turning students away.”