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USM Students Rally Again to Protest Proposed Cuts

Patty Wight

Students at the University of Southern Maine continued today to protest proposed measures designed to help fill the school's multi-million dollar budget deficit. USM announced a week ago that would go forward with plans to drop American and New England Studies, Geosciences, and Arts and Humanities at the Lewiston-Auburn Campus.

But students like Meaghan LaSala say dropping educational programs is unacceptable. "So we're sending the board of trustees a message that these programs are essential and that we're not going to stand for their elimination, and they need to stop the process right now," LaSala says.

LaSala, who is part of the group "Students For USM Future," says the students are also launching a crowd-sourcing project to hire an independent auditor to inspect the school's finances.

LaSala says the faculty senate was able to point to $400,000 that the administration was spending on their cell phones. She says if cuts need to be made, they need to be made farther from the students and their studies.