Faculty vote on program recommendations

As the process of academic program prioritization (APP) continues, the faculty submitted the first of three rounds of their own resolutions on program closures, program modifications and faculty reduction to CSB+SJU President Brian Bruess on Nov. 28.

The Joint Faculty Assembly (JFA), composed of all faculty members, voted on five resolutions on Nov. 17 that affect Asian studies, classics and ancient Mediterranean studies, peace studies, theater and philosophy. After Bruess reviews these resolutions, he will make his own recommendation for the Boards of Trustees to review and vote on in late February in addition to Provost Richard Ice’s recommendations and the faculty’s resolutions.

The faculty had 20 working days to respond to Ice’s recommendations for these programs, as required by section 2.14.4.3 of the Faculty Handbook. His recommendations were motivated by the schools’ desire to increase the student-to-faculty ratio to 12:1 with enrollment dipping below 1,500 students at each institution. The ratio was 11.4:1 in the 2021-22 academic year. Reallocating resources to bolster other programs and to create new programs were also contributing factors. Members of affected departments spoke to the entire faculty assembly at the JFA meeting.

“It was a very sober meeting,” said Parker Wheatley, economics professor and chair of the JFA. “In this meeting, we were, in some sense, engaging in votes that would affect the livelihoods of individuals and affect student experiences, and I think everybody took that very seriously.”

The JFA voted to accept Ice’s recommendation to close the Asian studies major but rejected his recommendation to close the minor. For classics and ancient Mediterranean studies, the JFA accepted Ice’s recommendation to eliminate the classical languages major and minor, the Greek minor and the Greek language sequence and the ancient Mediterranean studies major. A motion made at the meeting to retain the ancient Mediterranean studies major failed.

CSB senior and classics major Catherine Parker helped create a video featuring current students, faculty and CSB+SJU graduates talking about the benefits of the ancient Mediterranean studies major. She said she sent the video to all faculty and some administrators prior to the meeting in hopes the JFA would approve the motion to keep the ancient Mediterranean studies major.

“It was definitely disappointing to hear that some of my professors don’t necessarily see the purpose of classics continuing on,” Parker said.

Additionally, the JFA voted to retain the Latin language sequence (LATN 111, LATN 112 and LATN 211) and to retain one annual 300-level Latin class in order to keep the Latin minor. They also voted to retain the Asian studies minor. The JFA voted to accept Ice’s recommendation to close the peace studies major but rejected his recommendation to eliminate the department and the minor.

Theater was the only area where the JFA voted to accept the entirety of Ice’s recommendations, which included eliminating the theater major, retaining the minor and encouraging sufficient funding for at least two major shows to be held on campus each year. If the major ends up closing after the Boards of Trustees’ vote in February, some students hope its legacy will live on.

“I just hope that even though the major might not exist that people will still look to engage with theater at this school and on these campuses, because it does have a really vital role to play in the development of people’s understandings of our world and of being a person,” said Spencer Gerber, SJU junior and theater major. “I’m glad that there are still going to be avenues for people to pursue that.”

Finally, the assembly accepted the recommendation to retain the philosophy minor, but they rejected closure of the philosophy major. They also voted to change Ice’s recommendation from retaining exactly three full-time philosophy professors to retaining at least three full-time philosophy professors. Modifications to the philosophy department have been hotly contested, as many Catholic, private, liberal arts colleges like CSB and SJU have a philosophy major. Some community members consider philosophy to be a cornerstone of liberal arts education.

“Philosophy has a very special role historically in not only liberal arts education but also Catholic education,” Philosophy Professor Emily Esch said. “It has something to say about all of the disciplines. The level of questions in philosophy is at a level of generality—that means it affects everything. Some of the things that we do are especially core to the identity of these institutions.”

These five subject areas are just the first affected subjects the faculty will provide resolutions for. Esch, who also serves as the chair of the Academic Budget and Planning Committee on the Joint Faculty Senate, said the JFA will produce resolutions on Ice’s recommendations for gender studies, music and nutrition in the second round of resolutions and education and foreign languages, including French, German, Japanese and Chinese in the third round.

If a major or minor ends up closing, students currently enrolled in that major or minor will be able to complete it, according to Ice. Ice initiated the process of program prioritization on Aug. 14, 2021, when he invoked section 2.14.3 of the Faculty Handbook, which enables the provost to begin a “process leading to the reduction, impaction, merger or closure of academic programs.”

Then, throughout the remainder of 2021 and into the summer of 2022, two committees of academic administrators and faculty compiled a report that they shared with Ice on June 30, 2022. According to the Academic Program Prioritization Final Report, the Steering Committee consisted of former Academic Dean Barb May and eight professors. The Data Committee included five professors and six academic administrators. Two professors, Michael Livingston of the psychology department and Esch, resigned from the Steering Committee in May. The entire faculty did not have a say in these deliberations; only selected faculty representatives provided input.

On Sept. 26 of this year, Ice sent the Academic Program Prioritization Final Report to all faculty informing them of the academic programs under review. Following this declaration, named academic programs met and negotiated with Ice before he made his final recommendation. Ice considered each program’s adaptability, external demand (interest in the major from prospective students), internal demand (class enrollment data) and operating cost.

“We are working to make sure we have the best student experience for our students by focusing on where we can put resources that best assist students and the choices that students are making right now,” Ice said.

Once Ice made his final recommendation, the Academic Budget and Planning Committee (ABPC) and the Coordinating Committee for Academic Policies and Standards (CCAPS) on the Joint Faculty Senate began their own meetings with affected programs. The two committees worked with each other in this process. Esch said each affected program submitted a 500-word response to the provost’s recommendations, along with additional background on their major. ABPC and CCAPS met with every affected program at least once and usually twice, the first meeting to review the draft of the affected program’s resolution and the second to finalize it.

The process of coordinating meetings and reviewing documents has been taxing for some professors on ABPC and CCAPS, with committee members adding this duty on top of their usual work in the classroom.

“This whole thing has been really emotionally-laden,” Esch said. “The labor that these committees are doing is just really emotionally exhausting. Because there’s so much work to do, we’re doing it all of the time, so there’s sort of no escape from it.”

Based on discussions with affected programs and review of Ice’s recommendations, ABPC and CCAPS presented the resolutions that either agreed with the provost or sided with the department. These resolutions went to the Joint Faculty Senate first before being presented and debated on at the Nov. 17 meeting. The resulting resolutions included some disagreement with Ice’s recommendations.

“We did a lot of work deliberating and thinking about how to respond, and we hope that, in the places where we disagree with the provost, we are actually listened to,” Esch said.

If program cuts and reductions occur as a result of academic program prioritization, a number of faculty members will either be let go by the schools or enter into an incentivized retirement plan, which Ice said would be implemented if program closures and faculty reductions happen.

Esch said the faculty has not received any information about incentivized retirement packages and argued that offering these packages should have been the schools’ first steps toward increasing the student-to-faculty ratio.

“I wasn’t surprised about the report; I was surprised that we moved forward so quickly,” Esch said. “This is something that happens in lots of colleges and universities. In all of those cases, a major part of the process tends to be putting out retirement incentive packages to the faculty. So, I thought they would work on that, get that out, see how many faculty they could target to get to retire over this year and then come back to the issue of cutting programs.”

Ice said the process is not just about reducing faculty, but also ensuring that certain programs receive the resources they need in this time of decreased enrollment.

“The prioritization isn’t just about cutting,” Ice said. “It’s about prioritizing where resources are going and moving resources from one area to another.”

Throughout this entire process, communication about affected programs and potential closures have gone between faculty and administrators. No official statement has been sent to the student body, although some professors have shared updates with their students. The lack of official communication has left some students frustrated.

“In my opinion, the administration has done very little to communicate with the student body about their intentions with things that very much have to do with students’ lives,” Gerber said.

Parker, who said she has spoken to Ice about this issue several times, said she only heard about the changes from an alumna friend and faculty.

“I personally would not know about anything going on if I had not been informed by a past alumna and had been deliberately seeking out information,” Parker said. “I think it’s really unfair that they haven’t been keeping us in the loop, because it doesn’t give us an opportunity to advocate for things that are really important for us.”

Parker suggested the administration host student information sessions on the prioritization plan where students could ask questions and voice their opinions. Both Parker and Gerber acknowledged that low enrollment has left administrators in a tough position. Ice said the program prioritization plan has not been widely publicized to avoid confusion.

“Nothing’s secret. Once I send my things out, it’s not secret,” Ice said. “What I am concerned about, and some departments have been concerned of, [is] not wanting people to assume that just because I recommended something be closed that it is going to be closed.”

Ice also acknowledged the difficult nature of prioritizing academic programs.

“This is a challenging time in higher education, and this is a challenging and difficult process,” Ice said. “We are making a lot of progress, and I think that this is also a pivotal moment for St. Ben’s and St. John’s, prioritizing how we are going to move forward with our academic programs.”

No matter how difficult the process is, it continues to advance on, with the faculty’s vote just one part of many steps in its execution.

“The final decisions reside with the President and the Boards,” Wheatley said. “We are responding, with some reluctance but careful consideration of the quality of student experience, to the enrollment challenges we face.”