Kansas University’s Museum of Anthropology was the magnet that drew Janet Ciciarelli all the way from Los Angeles to do graduate work in museum studies at KU.

So she was shocked and disappointed when she got here and realized the university had decided to close the public part of the museum to save money in a tight budget year.

“It was a major disappointment,” she said.

But Ciciarelli and others are still fighting to make university administrators understand that their decision will hurt students. At KU’s Open House on Saturday, they rallied in front of the museum, gathering more than 200 signatures on a petition, passing out fliers and holding signs that read “Honk for the museum” and “Don’t close our classroom.”

Demonstrators invited passers-by to write their thoughts about the museum on a display board. One person, who signed as “a Spanish teacher,” said teachers would have to take their classes elsewhere for high-quality fieldtrips.

“It seems KU would rather spend money on leveling soccer fields than educating students,” the teacher wrote. “Have we lost sight of our priorities?”

KU officials in July announced the public part of the museum would close this fall, eliminating five positions and saving $150,000 to $200,000 each year. Artifacts will remain available for researchers and educational uses.

But students in museum studies and anthropology say that’s not enough.

Alison Miller, a Chicago graduate student in museum studies, said students in the program were required to log 500 hours of museum internship. With only two remaining staff members, the anthropology museum would not be able to maintain its current level of access for teaching and research, Miller said.

“We’re not asking them to reverse their decision,” Miller said. “We’re asking them for the opportunities we thought we had when we came here.”

The students would like to see the administration meet them halfway with an alternative, such as providing a half-time staff member devoted specifically to helping museum studies and anthropology students fulfill degree requirements.

Miller said students and museum staff were working on a formal proposal they would pair with petition signatures and give to administrators.

“They said the cuts would not affect academic programming,” Miller said. “This does affect academic programming. We really expected this would be here.”