A University of Wisconsin campus pushes plan to drop 13 majors — including English, history and philosophy

Authored by washingtonpost.com and submitted by ActuelRoiDeFrance

The University of Wisconsin at Stevens Point has proposed dropping 13 majors in the humanities and social sciences — including English, philosophy, history, sociology and Spanish — while adding programs with “clear career pathways” as a way to address declining enrollment and a multimillion-dollar deficit.

Students and faculty members have reacted with surprise and concern to the news, which is being portrayed by the school’s administration as a path to regain enrollment and provide new opportunities to students. Critics see something else: a waning commitment to liberal arts education and a chance to lay off faculty under new rules that weakened tenure.

Students are planning a sit-in at the campus administration building on Wednesday in a demonstration called Save Our Majors. The Stevens Point Journal said students will then deliver a list of demands and requests to school officials. The school is one of 11 comprehensive campuses in the University of Wisconsin system.

The plan to cut the liberal arts and humanities majors (see full list below) is in line with a failed attempt by Republican Gov. Scott Walker in 2015 to secretly change the mission of the respected university system — known as the Wisconsin Idea and embedded in the state code — by removing words that commanded the university to “search for truth” and “improve the human condition” and replacing them with “meet the state’s workforce needs.”

The push away from liberal arts and toward workplace skills is championed by conservatives who see many four-year colleges and universities as politically correct institutions that graduate too many students without practical job skills — but with liberal political views.

The administration at the University of Wisconsin at Stevens Point recently issued a statement detailing the plan, which still must be approved by a campus governance committee as well as the University of Wisconsin system’s chancellor and Board of Regents.

It said that the school faces a $4.5 million deficit over two years because declining enrollment has led to lower tuition revenue, and proposes adding or expanding 16 programs in areas “with high-demand career paths as a way to maintain and increase enrollment.” Last fall, the school saw an enrollment decrease of 5.4 percent from the year before. That was on top of a 6.8 percent drop the previous year.

“To fund this future investment, resources would be shifted from programs with lower enrollment, primarily in the traditional humanities and social sciences,” the school statement says. “Although some majors are proposed to be eliminated, courses would continue to be taught in these fields, and minors or certificates will be offered.”

Programs that would be expanded, which “have demonstrated value and demand in the region,” include marketing, management, graphic design, fire science and computer information systems.

The student newspaper, the Pointer, quoted Samantha Stein, a 2017 graduate, as opposing the plan. Stein, who earned a bachelor’s degree in biology and had a minor in biomedical writing through the English department, said:

“The shift away from the humanities and from the opening of one’s mind to other cultures, languages, the arts, political science and so much more is one that universities will not return from, and we are giving up what a college education is all about if we do this.”

Inside Higher Education quoted Michael Williams, chair of English at Stevens Point, as saying, “Well, you can imagine the mood in the College of Letters and Science, which houses the humanities.”

The Republican-dominated legislature in Wisconsin weakened tenure in 2015, removing it from state law. Lawmakers also changed the traditional power-sharing arrangement at public universities that had long given students, faculty and staff an important role in governance, instead giving more power to administrators and the governor-appointed Regents. The Regents then set new policies that made it easier for public universities to lay off tenured faculty.

MKEndress on March 23rd, 2018 at 02:50 UTC »

This is a smaller campus in the Wisconsin system. There are a dozen comparable alternatives that offer these majors within the system.

redskyfalling on March 23rd, 2018 at 02:45 UTC »

I think we are witnessing a shift in society's definition of the university from that of a holy place of learning toward that of a job training institution.

And whether or not that is ok is totally up to you.

edit:words.

SuperKato1K on March 23rd, 2018 at 02:42 UTC »

I understand their motivation... 25% of the university's budget was being expended on 5% of the student population. But there must have been a way to reduce the size/expense of those departments without completely eliminating them. English, history, and philosophy don't have to be giant, expensive departments, but they shouldn't be considered throwaway majors.