Iowa State could be facing a state budget cut, and the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences is trying to prepare for it.

Peter Rabideau, dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, said he did not know Wednesday what kinds of cuts the college would be facing, but he has asked all of the department chairs to decide how they would react to a 4 percent budget cut.

He said once the information is available, the college and the departments would have to decide what would be cut, if anything, and what other alternatives are available.

“We would try to bring together a policy for the college,” he said. “This is the first step in a preliminary effort to get input from the departments on where they stand at the moment.”

Responses from the departments are due in Rabideau’s office next week, he said.

“Quite honestly, at 4 percent, which may actually not be as big as the cuts turn out to be, I still think it would have a devastating effect,” he said.

Rabideau said the college already has several under-funded programs to which it has had to provide supplemental funding, including English, foreign languages and literatures, computer science and mathematics.

“I’m very concerned about the effect this will have on the availability of classes,” he said.

James McCormick, professor and chairman of political science, said cuts would affect faculty and courses in the department.

“The budget cuts will probably affect a number of positions that we have and, therefore, a number of the courses that we will be able to teach,” he said. “We will do the best we can, but it will have some impact on the number of faculty and the number of courses that we offer.”

Madeleine Henry, associate professor and chairwoman of foreign languages and literatures, said she is currently drafting a report to the dean on what the implications of a 4 percent budget cut would be for the department.

“Almost 40 percent of our classes are taught by people who don’t have permanent jobs, so we don’t have permanent money for those instructors.” she said. “What we’re looking at is not getting any of that money that we need to teach our classes.”

Also, Henry said the money the department will have to give back to the college will have to come from permanent faculty.

“It’s like getting hit twice,” she said.

Henry said she guesses almost half the classes in the department will not be covered by the budget.

If the department does not get more money, Henry said it has few options. These include not offering some classes at all or making permanent faculty teach more.

“Since our faculty already have a heavy load, this is not good,” she said.

Another option, Henry said, would be to put more students in classes, which could also be harmful.

“If you’re teaching somebody how to speak and read and write in another language, you can’t do that to 30 people,” she said. “There’s a limit as to how effective we can be.”

She said it would not only have an impact on majors and minors, but also students who take courses in the department to meet multicultural requirements.

“It will have a huge effect on students,” Henry said.