Nearly 800 people have signed a petition asking the University to restore funding to the music department, as well as the theater and dance department.

The petition gathered 793 signatures as of Thursday morning, nearly a week after students learned about how course offerings for next semester would be affected by University-wide budget cuts.

One-on-one instrumental lessons will be reserved for majors and minors only and the department will decrease from two bands and two choruses to one of each.

Professors have said that the cuts could shrink the department by at least 40 percent and that they could make it difficult for the department to attract the most-talented students.

The petition states that the cuts will also affect the music department’s collaboration with other arts departments, like the theater and dance department. Courses that aren’t required for theater and dance major or minors are being cut, it says.

All academic departments and administrative divisions around the University have been asked to cut their budgets for next year by about 5 percent to make up for overspending and revenue from tuition falling below projections.