University of Vermont administrators are rushing to defend the proposal to cut 23 programs from the university’s College of Arts and Science, despite resounding protests from students and faculty.
Bill Falls, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, proposed the budget reductions in a Dec. 3 memo without consulting faculty or students. The decision “does not mean we are not invested in liberal arts,” Patricia Prelock, the university provost, told reporters Monday. The provost is the university’s chief academic officer, reporting directly to the president.
Though thousands of students, faculty and alumni have protested the cuts, Prelock said she stands by the decision, describing it as part of a years-long effort to restructure the college. “Even if we had not had the pandemic, we would have had to do this,” she said, citing depressed enrollment and the school’s $8.6 million deficit.
“We need people to think about the larger university vision,” she said. “Maintaining programs that are low enrollment is just not sustainable.” It prevents investment in the university’s other, more popular humanities majors, she said.
Under the proposal, 12 of 56 majors, 11 of 63 minors, and four of 10 graduate programs in the college will be terminated, including majors in religion, geology and classics. Other programs, like arts and theater, will be consolidated. In an email to a student, which was shared on social media, Falls wrote that the consolidation would “save $600k to $800k in administrative costs.”
All of the majors that are being terminated have graduated an average of seven or fewer students in the last three years, though many more students still enroll in their courses. Critics say the university’s neglect of the humanities contributed to those low numbers in the first place.
Prelock noted that some classes in those programs will still be available to students, and in some cases, a minor would remain. “It doesn’t mean that [students] wouldn’t have that content,” she said.
The changes also aren’t technically finalized. Program terminations must go through a faculty senate review process before they take effect, and then must be approved by the Board of Trustees. But Thomas Chittenden, the faculty senate president, told VTDigger last week that he is skeptical the administration will go back on its plans. Still, the Board will have the final say.
Changes in the programs won’t start until the next academic year, the administration says, and students enrolled in programs slated for termination will be able to complete their degrees.
More cuts ahead
The College of Arts and Sciences was just “ahead of the game” in announcing plans for consolidation, Prelock said Monday.
“Every single college” at UVM, she said, is expected to roll back or consolidate programs in the near future. “I expect some recommendations from all the other colleges and schools in mid-February,” she said.
Because the College of Arts and Science has had longstanding budget issues, it disclosed program cuts earlier than the rest of the university, Prelock said. The faculty union says the financial problems have been “manufactured” by university administrators.
In the months ahead, the leaders of UVM’s other eight other schools and colleges will consider similar changes. “I’ve directed all the deans to look at low enrollment,” Prelock said.
“I hope that the other deans will consult with their faculty before they make these decisions, and take that consultation very seriously,” said Julie Roberts, president of UVM’s faculty union.
Roberts and others say they are frustrated that they weren’t consulted before Falls’s announcement — and they don’t buy the university’s rationale behind cutting low-enrollment programs.
“There are many factors in terms of how many students come. And some of it is how many students apply, obviously. But another one is how many you accept,” Roberts said. “The administration has total control over acceptance.”
The faculty union says the university has reduced the number of applicants admitted to the College of Arts and Sciences over the years. “Fewer accepted students results, unsurprisingly, in lower enrollments,” the union wrote.
And the college’s smaller departments were hit harder by the university’s hiring freeze, Roberts said, harming course offerings.
Layoffs may be on the horizon. Though Roberts said she had no specifics yet, “there certainly have been signals from the upper administration that they are planning on personnel or faculty cuts.”
“It really pains us, because there are great faculty there,” Prelock said. But ultimately, she said, Falls “needed to lay out there what needs to be done.”
Clarification: This story has been updated to more precisely describe the process for terminating programs at UVM.
