MONROE - Nursing students at the Monroe campus of Blackhawk Technical College will now have to drive to Janesville for lecture classes, a change that caused some students to voice sharp criticism of the decision during a meeting Friday with Kennedy Sharon, vice president of learning, and Ruth Wheaton-Cox, nursing coordinator.

About two dozen students attended the meeting at the Monroe campus.

Students just learned recently that BTC's lecture classes in the nursing program are being combined and will be held on the Janesville Central Campus starting in January. The change means Monroe campus students will have to travel to Janesville once or twice a week to attend those classes. Specifically, the change affects about 16 first-semester students and 13 third-semester students.

Discussion classes, skills labs and clinical assignment are expected to remain in Monroe. Mental Health clinical rotations and orientation have been and will remain in Janesville.

Wheaton-Cox informed students of the class changes in a letter, dated Sept. 27. Included with the letter was a form to indicate whether the student intended to withdraw from the program or continue. The deadline for the letter to signed and returned is Friday, Oct. 14.

According to Kennedy, BTC is dealing with a $1 million budget deficit this year, and the nursing program in Monroe is not the only department being cut. With cuts in state aid, tax levies capped and tuition set by the state, BTC must look for ways to "pull back on costs," she said.

Kennedy said the consolidation will cut the amount spent on "overload pay" for full-time faculty.

The consolidation of nursing lecture classes is expected to save about $50,000, Kennedy said.

But students Friday expressed anger, saying the college never considered how the changes will affect their lives and disrupt the plans they have made in order to attend classes at Monroe.

Many students noted the added expense and time for commuting to Janesville, as well as the disruption on their personal work and parenting schedules.

One student said her agreement with her employer is based on her attending classes on the Monroe campus.

Some graduating students who have taken a few required classes in Janesville also voiced dissatisfaction with Janesville faculty and the larger class sizes.

Other students said they live near Beloit and Janesville but chose to attend classes at the Monroe campus because they wanted the more personal instruction. One said she came to Monroe "especially for the theory classes."

"Monroe teachers take time to make sure we get it before moving on," another said.

Jodie Edgar, Monroe, started the nursing program in January after waiting four years to attend classes at the campus in Monroe. During that time, she worked in Madison, bought a house in Monroe and saved her money to pay for her schooling.

"I spent four years planning, budgeting and saving for this -knowing I wouldn't be working while going to school," she said. The extra cost for traveling to Janesville for classes will eat into her very strict budget, she said.

Edgar told Wheaton-Cox she didn't know yet what to do about continuing in the course.

Another student said she wouldn't sign the form because she had until December by school policy to decide whether she would return in January.

Wheaton-Cox said she would take the students concerns back to the college to be discussed further.

"There are some things you brought up that we didn't think about," she said.

But some students didn't believe the school would undo the changes. Other students said Wheaton-Cox couldn't guarantee that they would get their class schedules coordinated between the two campuses, and one even expressed belief that the whole program would eventually be cut to nothing.

The decreased use of the Monroe facility brought out concerns about the cost paid by Green County residents for the improvements to the campus in the past six years.

"Green County taxpayers paid to build this wonderful facility and now it's going to sit empty because of your decision," one student said.

A $17.5 million building referendum for BTC's Central and Monroe campuses was approved in November 2002. The referendum was approved in Green County on a 5,344-2,780 vote. Property owners in Green and Rock counties braced for an increase of 19 cents per $1,000 in property value in their BTC tax rate. The loan was expected to be paid off over a 15-year period.

In January 2005, the new Monroe campus facility expansion was opened. At a cost of about $2 million, the 10,500-square-foot addition houses nursing and science labs, a new library resource center and a childcare program.

At the time, BTC research showed the new associate's degree nursing (ADN) program was badly needed because of a shortage of registered nurses in the county. The program was supplemented by hands-on practical experience at The Monroe Clinic and area nursing homes.