KNOXVILLE — The University of Tennessee system will cut $21.1 million from its statewide budget and raise tuition by 6 percent next fall, but questions remain over whether the UT campus at Knoxville will lose three academic programs.

“There isn’t a person on a staff of any of our campuses that doesn’t find budget-cutting a gut-wrenching experience,” UT President John Petersen said at the annual UT board of trustees meeting Friday.

At the meeting, a 6 percent tuition increase was approved unanimously by the UT board, increasing tuition by $238 next year at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and by $308 at UT.

The UT system lost 4.1 percent of its state money, dropping from $522 million to $501 million. To recover from the cuts, Dr. Petersen asked UTC administrators to cut $2.6 million from their budget, UT administrators to cut $11.1 million and UT-Martin to cut $1.9 million.

Budget cuts have forced UT administrators to put three academic programs on the chopping block — the department of audiology and speech pathology in the College of Arts and Sciences, the College of Business’s industrial and organizational psychology graduate program and the university’s dance program.

In October, the board will vote on how specific institutional cuts will be executed and which academic programs will be either phased out or eliminated outright, Dr. Petersen said.

Several people, including families and faculty, were present at the board meeting to protest the proposal to cut the audiology and speech pathology department at UT.

Heather Maret, whose 3-year-old son, Aiden, is deaf and attends the UT audiology and speech pathology clinic, said she is frustrated and angry about the possibility of the clinic being eliminated.

Ms. Maret said her son has learned to speak and listen because he has been able to work with students in the department’s clinic. She said she doesn’t know where she will take him if the clinic closes.

“(Dr. Petersen) seems to think this program isn’t viable, but it is,” she said. “It has a profound effect on the community.”

Carl Asp, professor emeritus in the UT audiology and speech pathology department, said he thinks it is ridiculous for a flagship institution to cut a prominent and respected program.

“It is horrible,” said Mr. Asp, who came to work in the department in 1967 and attended Friday’s board meeting. “They got the wrong dog by the tail. There is a lot of passion in this program.”

During Friday’s meeting Dr. Petersen urged the board not to make the type of across-the-board budget cuts that have hurt the university system in the past.

“It would be an enormous long-term mistake for this institution,” he said.

Instead, strategic cuts should be made to programs that are not contributing to the core mission of the university, he said.

The UT audiology and speech pathology department is a worthwhile program, Dr. Petersen said, but it does not offer general education classes, which reduces its value to the College of Arts and Sciences.

Dr. Petersen said the board and the UT administration will be talking with faculty leadership and getting more information for the October decision.

“We may be back in October to propose the same thing,” he said. “We may not.”

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