Perceived cuts to the Chester Fritz Library have had students — especially graduate students and those who regularly use the library to conduct research — on edge all semester.

But after sitting down with UND Provost Thomas DiLorenzo, I think most of our fears can start to be put to bed.

A few weeks ago, DiLorenzo sent out an email to all UND students and faculty addressing what everyone had been hearing about — that the library was going to have anywhere from $300,000 to $700,000 less than it had last year. It was understood these weren’t direct cuts, but, rather, that they were the consequence of a series of shortfalls that just couldn’t be fixed in time.

What was less understood within the student body was why they couldn’t be fixed. All we knew was the Fritz’s online databases were to be slimmed down, and, for many students who need to dig up peer-reviewed journal articles for their class papers, this is often their go-to source for these valuable items.

But, Wednesday afternoon, Dilorenzo, UND spokesman Peter Johnson and other university officials gathered with reporters and concerned students and promised that the perceived consequences many of us had been worrying about would not see the light of day.

The specifics of where all the university’s money comes from and how it gets distributed gets pretty confusing; it’s rarely as simple as some of us are eager to believe.

It could be nice to think there’s some nameless administrator at a university who hates books, despises being quiet in libraries and gets her kicks off making graduate students miserable. But, there’s usually a better explanation.

In this case, it seems, we found it by asking, which the provost said he was glad we — as a student body — did.

For example, many students get worked up at the idea that we’re building a new athletics facility while our library lay under the knife. But comparing those projects really isn’t fair, when you consider that the money going toward the athletics facility was all donated by alumni, who only donated for that specific purpose. In other words, it’s a nice little bonus; the university didn’t choose to spend it there instead of on the library.

Regardless of what it seemed like was the case after DiLorenzo’s school-wide email, we have assurance from the man himself that the library won’t suffer the way we feared. It felt like a pretty big promise, but I’ve rarely seen somebody say something as confidently as he when he swore, “We’re going to find the money.”

But keep signing petitions if they need to be signed; keep writing letters to the editor and tweeting about things that need talking about. The provost himself said he loves student activism, and rightly so. How else could our administrators know what we want?

Will Beaton is the Editor-in-Chief at The Dakota Student. He can be reached at [email protected]