A Thursday evening meeting between College of Arts & Letters faculty members and Provost Lou Anna Simon left participants positive about future conversations and alternatives to large teaching assistant cuts.

More than 50 people from the college filled a Linton Hall room for an hour and a half of open dialogue.

Scott Michaelsen, associate professor of English, brought his experience as the director of the Ad Hoc Committee on Faculty Voice to his college and organized the meeting.

"We had a very open and very productive dialogue about our shared values regarding the humanities and we agreed to work together in the coming weeks to find ways to protect and enhance our core humanities programs, both graduate and undergraduate," he said.

Simon said the discussion led to an understanding between faculty and the administration as to the reality of budget cuts.

"We sort of shared realities and concerns, and then tried to think about some ideas we could pursue in a context in which the resources are constrained," she said.

The discussion was spawned from TA position offers made on March 31, a deadline established by the Graduate Employees Union. Colleges used preliminary budget plans proposed by the deans to offer a number of TA positions for fall and spring semesters.

Specifically, the Department of Spanish and Portuguese in the College of Arts & Letters was hit hard by the cuts. In this academic year, 25 TAs instructed courses, but the number invited back shrank to 16.

TAs from that department and others protested Thursday outside the Administration Building and inside Linton Hall against the large number of cuts. The conversation between the provost and faculty revolved around the concerns expressed.

John Rauk, chair of the Department of French, Classics and Italian, said the faculty stands behind the TAs and shares in their concern about their employment and the quality of education in the future.

"TAs are not superfluous, they're key to what we do and we need to deal with the present situation to configure a better situation for TAs," Rauk said.

Wendy Wilkins, dean of the College of Arts & Letters, said the conversations in the meeting went beyond the current budget situation to focus on the future of graduate programs.

"Conversations about grad programs will gain momentum, it's not a quick thing to overturn overnight but there is a lot of energy and enthusiasm," she said.

Simon and faculty members expressed a desire to continue dialogue, but no meeting dates have been set.