A debt of $1.2 million has caused the dean of liberal arts and sciences to freeze open positions in 14 departments in that college.

Dean James Norris said in order to reduce the deficit, the college must impose a hiring freeze on the positions or students will pay more for their education.

“The college doesn’t fit in the budget that’s been provided, so they (L.A. and S.) have to downsize the college to fit the budget, because they can’t meet demands,” Norris said.

“If you’re a student in college, you don’t want your tuition raised. What alternative is left?” he said, adding that no one wants the quality of classes to drop either.

“It is not our intention or within our power to eliminate any positions currently filled,” Norris said.

Norris said more faculty feel they want to be in strong departments and prefer a freeze to other solutions.

“We’re going to have to reduce teaching to fit into the budget. The only way is to hire fewer people,” he said.

“I think it’s discouraging, but so is not getting any raise. If you’re open and honest with them (staff) they’ll give you good advice,” he said.

“We ought to be prepared in case we don’t get the funding we need,” he said. “I brought it down to where I can be within the budget for the next fiscal year,” he said.

Norris said he could not remember which departments the freezes were made in.

The college of liberal arts and sciences provides credit hours at a better cost than other colleges at NIU, Norris said. However, due to the slow economy, the state isn’t likely to help much, so the freeze is a necessary means of solving the problem, he said.

Raising salaries of established teachers in departments like English also wouldn’t be possible without the freeze, he added.

Norris also said he would like to reduce the debt to about $900,000 so there wouldn’t be a need to reduce positions in the college. The debt was originally estimated at about $1.5 million, but Norris said the freeze took the estimate down to $1.2 million.