Academic Prioritization Plan continues

In a memo sent to the faculty on Monday, Provost Richard Ice outlined his recommendation that two departments be closed and three other majors and/or minors be discontinued, reduced or revised.

The potentially affected programs (with the recommendation in parenthesis) are as follows: Asian Studies (discontinue major and minor); Classics (discontinue Classical Languages major and minor, discontinue the Greek minor and eliminate the Greek language sequence, reduce Latin by eliminating the Latin minor and retaining the Latin language sequence that satisfies the IC Language requirement and discontinue Ancient Mediterranean Studies major and retain minor); Peace Studies (discontinue major and minor); Philosophy (discontinue major, revise minor) and Theater (discontinue major, revise minor).

This action is one step in a process known as the Academic Prioritization Plan (APP), which Ice initiated August 4, 2021, as enrollment declines outpaced reductions to the faculty. Final decisions are expected to come in Feb. 2023 via the Boards of Trustees, after President Brian Bruess submits his own recommendations.

“The key issue is that having too many programs that are very small becomes unsustainable in the long term for the institution. So, we’re looking at ways to make sure we deliver the kind of education that we’ve been known to deliver, but in a different way. We have to be careful to make sure that we are continuing to be on the cutting edge and to be offering the kinds of programs that attract students and that students, once they’re here, want to participate in,” Ice said.

The five departments above make up group one of academic programs potentially affected by the APP. Departments in the second and third groups (Chemistry, Education, Gender Studies, Music, Nutrition, Physics, Chinese, French Studies, German Studies, Japanese and Latino/Latin American Studies) will all go through the same process, and the provost will provide his recommendations for those programs later this fall.

The origination of the provost’s recommendations stem from a document called the APP Final Report, which contains the suggestions of two faculty committees: the Data Committee and the Steering Committee. The two committees evaluated each academic program under eight specific criteria: Mission, Adaptability, External Demand, Internal Demand, Student Outcomes, Program Benefits, Program Cost and Vision & Opportunity Analysis.

The Final Report, which was submitted on July 1, contains two recommendations for each program: a primary recommendation, which assigns each academic program one of five actions (enhance, maintain, reduce, merge or discontinue) in response to cumulative enrollment declines and a path to return to the target 12:1 student-to-faculty ratio, and a secondary recommendation, which were provided in the event that enrollments continue to decline to around 1,500 total students.

The report also provided suggestions for new academic programs that would meet internal and external demand. Three areas were identified for action in the short term and are already under discussion: Engineering, Entrepreneurship and Finance. However, the report’s primary recommendation outlined a reduction of 28 faculty members, while the secondary recommendation outlined a reduction of 55. Ice plans to reduce the faculty through an enhanced retirement plan and, if necessary, cuts.

For faculty in the potentially affected departments, seeing the APP Final Report was a jarring experience.

“When the [APP Final Report] came out this past July, it was kind of a shock, for philosophy in particular…we know that overall, we have to lose so many faculty, that so many people have to go, but why us? Why three [faculty]? Why not two, or something like that? And why the major?” said Professor Erica Stonestreet, who chairs the Philosophy department, one of the potentially affected programs. “Since the report came out, there’s been a lot of scrambling, particularly by the affected programs to try and figure out what to do.”

That scrambling has resulted in more questions than answers, particularly inside the philosophy department: Do we try to fight for this? Do we try to combine with another department? Do we reinvent ourselves? Externally, the push is on to keep the philosophy major around. A former faculty member has solicited more than 70 letters from alumni, while a team of alumni have had conversations with the president and provost.

For students, rumors of the cuts have been swirling for months, but very few solid details have emerged until the past couple of weeks. Because nothing is final at this point, the provost has not released any official statement to the students, something that sophomore Ethan Riddle pushed back against.

“I feel that we could do with some more transparency. Are these majors and minors, like peace studies, like the language departments, are they going to come back ever? Or is this just, ‘we’re cutting it now and it’s never coming back’ and the school is going to focus on business and nursing now,” said Riddle, a peace studies major. “I would like to know what the future is going to look like, because I feel like it kind of betrays the liberal arts values if you focus down on one or two areas of study.”

One thing that is clear is that no current students will be affected by the final decisions, even if they have not declared a major yet. According to the provost, if a student enrolled this fall, they will be eligible to graduate under any of the majors currently in the course catalog. However, it’s unclear how the program cuts will affect class selection for students in those majors.

“It’s a difficult process. For some people it’s painful. I understand all of that, and I understand that there’s a lot of people that wish we didn’t have to do this, myself included. But higher education is at a turning point, and there’s a lot of disruption in higher education. And if we don’t continue to innovate and continue to update our pedagogy and our curriculum, then we will be in trouble,” Ice said.