FREDONIA, N.Y. (WKBW) — Current and former students of the State University of New York (SUNY) at Fredonia are sharing their concerns after the announcement of more program cuts.
On Tuesday, the university announced it was cutting 10 undergraduate, four graduate, and seven minor programs as part of its multi-year financial sustainability plan to address its $8.1 million structural deficit.
According to university leadership, the deficit has shrunk from $17 million.
"Those were very difficult decisions," Dr. Stephen H. Kolison Jr, president of SUNY Fredonia, told WKBW on Wednesday. "Difficult because they impact our faculty, they impact our students, and they impact the community. And so we are sensitive to that."
"If we insist on holding on to programs that students no longer demand, then we will even miss the opportunity for making our institution much stronger and positioning it for success in the future," Kolison said.
In Tuesday's release, about 111 students are expected to be enrolled across these programs as majors, and about 60 students are expected to be enrolled in associated minors when the Fall 2026 semester begins in August.
According to the university, this represents less than 5% of Fredonia’s total student population, and of those students, only 25 are newly deposited and registered.
Part of that five percent, however, is current senior Tatum Erickson.
"One of my good friends sent me a text in the morning, and she said, 'they cut your major,'" Erickson said.
Erickson is a Communications-Audio/Radio major and the current production director for Fredonia Radio Systems, the on-campus radio station.
"It really saddens me, as somebody who grew up in Jamestown, Fredonia was always a choice for me," Erickson said. "And to see all of these majors being cut, if, if they didn't have the major that I went into and showed up here with, I wouldn't have come here.”
WATCH: SUNY Fredonia students and alumni fear ‘ripple effects’ after more program cuts
"The station has been such a fantastic and loving place. The community here is just so beautiful and amazing," Erickson said. "I don't think that the student body is going to forget about the radio station, and I hope to God that the administration does not forget about the radio station."
"There are no plans to eliminate the station," Kolison said. "We will support the students to do this kind of work, to practice, and things like that."
He added that the organization is considered a student club; thus, funding is through student accounts.
Despite this, Erickson is concerned that these cuts will lead to ripple effects.
"A lot of the people who do the technical things and the technical side of things came from that major," Erickson said. "There are so many technicalities behind the scenes of radio, like making a show, this background knowledge of levels and EQing things, and making it all sound correct.
"A lot of that was learned and taught in those classes," Erickson said. This sentiment is shared by alumni as well.
"It really taught me kind of how to do everything that I needed to do," Hunter Halterman, a 2024 graduate of the Audio/Radio program, told WKBW. "I wouldn't change my experience at SUNY for the world in my time at the radio station and working with these professors."
Halterman was at the university when 13 programs were cut, including Philosophy and Early Childhood Education, among others.
"It sucks to say because I spent 4 years of my life with this place and I've put so much money into it and so much time and energy," Halterman said. "I'm worried for the school's future if they continue down this path of cutting all these programs.”
"What will happen when those professors retire? Will the school fill the positions or cut that major, too?"
Halterman also expressed concern over how the announcement of the cuts was made.
"To announce the cuts after graduation is over, it feels as though they're trying to avoid the same confrontation they had before," Halterman said.
Erickson, likewise, found the timing of the announcement alarming.
"I think that it is frustrating and evil that the school decides to open up the cutting of the majors to the community and the students as soon as classes are over, and most of the students are not allowed to stay in their dorms and are not allowed to stay here," Erickson said. "They have to go home all across the state, all across the United States, and so many of these students cannot have their voices heard."
When asked, Kolison responded, "You have to understand the process by which you make these decisions." He continued, "They require a lot of time, they require a lot of consultations."
"We were working on this up to even last Friday, the day before commencement. The last set of consultations that I had was on Friday and even yesterday morning, as a leadership group, we were up, at a meeting about 8:30 in the morning until about 9:30 trying to look at every single thing, trying to examine whether these are the right decisions," Kolison said.
"What I promised the campus was that I would make sure that I would release this information, that the decision would be made before they were out of obligation, which is Friday, May 22nd," Kolison said.
According to Kolison, the university hopes to balance the budget by the 2028-2029 fiscal year.
