Black Hawk College faculty plead for their jobs amid cuts

MOLINE, Ill. (AP) - Faculty members at a community college in western Illinois are asking trustees to reconsider job cuts amid the lack of a state budget.

Black Hawk College is eliminating 17 full-time positions. On Thursday professor Richard Harwood pleaded with trustees. He said he's received notice his job teaching geology and other courses will be terminated at the semester's end and his program will be cut. He's worked at the school for 23 years.

Harwood says he can't retire "with dignity and honor" and being told he's no longer needed has hurt "deeper than I can express."

Black Hawk College president Bettie Truitt says declining enrollment and state funding cuts have strained the school's budget. The Moline Dispatch reports (http://bit.ly/2k0J7Vn ) the school has received about 35 percent of anticipated state funding in the last two years.

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Information from: The Dispatch, http://www.qconline.com