Another Public Flagship May Cut Dozens of Majors

[methodsman]

From https://www.chronicle.com/article/another-public-flagship-may-cut-dozens-of-majors

"Vials said that while the programs under review have a smaller number of majors, they host popular classes that are full every semester and play a key role in recruiting faculty."

I hope that is a typo.

mm

[TreadingLife]

How could it be a typo?

The primary mission of a college or university is to employ faculty. How else could you explain the design of the curriculum and the resistance to change it? Any school that has moved away from offering Theology, Latin, Classics, and even more contemporary majors like Home Economics and Administrative Assistant are failing at their mission to provide a liberal arts education as it has always existed. Schools MUST have those majors. We had them for decades! How dare we cut them! It is a disgusting dereliction of duty to cut majors where there are no students. Students have a moral imperative to pay tuition to support the existence of classes that fill and classes that do not fill.

If you don't have a full throated defense of this position, you need to resign as faculty immediately.

Far better that the entire institution fails and everyone loses their job, than we cave to the whims of students acting as if they have free will choosing their plan of study.  We know what students need to take far better than they do.

And while I am at it, don't tell me that a student who doesn't plan to study abroad and doesn't plan to live in a French speaking area doesn't need to learn the French subjunctive. They must. Quite frankly, I can't think of a more important bastion of general education to defend at all costs. I don't care how much it costs or how the students feel about it. Such a requirement has existed for decades, and that proves that it is WORTH IT today.

[dismalist]

Far better that the entire institution fails and everyone loses their job ... .

Who needs students?

Having those pesky students originated as a means to help finance faculty, for their research or for their better living or to train the students in religion. Offering teaching and research amounted to bundling. We have come a long way. Government and endowments pay for lots of this stuff, including through student loans. The bundling we do now is football with teaching. There's plenty of secular religion in universities nowadays.

If somebody else can finance us, we don't need students!

[fizzycist]

How could it be a typo?

The primary mission of a college or university is to employ faculty. How else could you explain the design of the curriculum and the resistance to change it? Any school that has moved away from offering Theology, Latin, Classics, and even more contemporary majors like Home Economics and Administrative Assistant are failing at their mission to provide a liberal arts education as it has always existed. Schools MUST have those majors. We had them for decades! How dare we cut them! It is a disgusting dereliction of duty to cut majors where there are no students. Students have a moral imperative to pay tuition to support the existence of classes that fill and classes that do not fill.

If you don't have a full throated defense of this position, you need to resign as faculty immediately.

Far better that the entire institution fails and everyone loses their job, than we cave to the whims of students acting as if they have free will choosing their plan of study.  We know what students need to take far better than they do.

And while I am at it, don't tell me that a student who doesn't plan to study abroad and doesn't plan to live in a French speaking area doesn't need to learn the French subjunctive. They must. Quite frankly, I can't think of a more important bastion of general education to defend at all costs. I don't care how much it costs or how the students feel about it. Such a requirement has existed for decades, and that proves that it is WORTH IT today.

I tell you what: you go ahead and make a state flagship university that sells business and communications degrees on the cheap. I'll stick with a well-rounded knowledge creator/curator. Let's find out which one society values more in the long run and which one attracts ppl to our state.

[TreadingLife]

How could it be a typo?

The primary mission of a college or university is to employ faculty. How else could you explain the design of the curriculum and the resistance to change it? Any school that has moved away from offering Theology, Latin, Classics, and even more contemporary majors like Home Economics and Administrative Assistant are failing at their mission to provide a liberal arts education as it has always existed. Schools MUST have those majors. We had them for decades! How dare we cut them! It is a disgusting dereliction of duty to cut majors where there are no students. Students have a moral imperative to pay tuition to support the existence of classes that fill and classes that do not fill.

If you don't have a full throated defense of this position, you need to resign as faculty immediately.

Far better that the entire institution fails and everyone loses their job, than we cave to the whims of students acting as if they have free will choosing their plan of study.  We know what students need to take far better than they do.

And while I am at it, don't tell me that a student who doesn't plan to study abroad and doesn't plan to live in a French speaking area doesn't need to learn the French subjunctive. They must. Quite frankly, I can't think of a more important bastion of general education to defend at all costs. I don't care how much it costs or how the students feel about it. Such a requirement has existed for decades, and that proves that it is WORTH IT today.

I tell you what: you go ahead and make a state flagship university that sells business and communications degrees on the cheap. I'll stick with a well-rounded knowledge creator/curator. Let's find out which one society values more in the long run and which one attracts ppl to our state.

Students today choosing a school/state based on their expected family contribution is just appalling. Just take on the debt. Trust us, it is worth it. It will be discharged when you die. What more do you want?

I for one chose my undergraduate institution based on their requirement of the foreign subjunctive.

And when I chose my graduate program, I again based my decision not on whether the graduate program was a good fit for my professional and personal aspirations, but whether or not they required the foreign subjunctive for undergraduate students. That is what attracted me to move to that state.

And when I took my tenure track job, the salary, teaching and research expectations, and location were not my primary considerations. Neither was my interest in having a 30-40 year career at one institution. Rather, what drew me to the state was the general education curriculum and the motley of majors offered, coupled with the audacity to defend them at all costs. That is what gets me out of bed every morning.  Huzzah!

[Wahoo Redux]

If the people do not want the subjunctive, we should not try to foist the subjunctive on them.  The people are paying for this, after all.

We should acknowledge, however, that our schools are being whittled into business bootcamps.  If the people are okay with that, so be it.  Education means different things to different people at different times. We abandoned the trivium and quadrivium, in name anyway. 

We should acknowledge that the prestige gulf is going to increase between schools which offer the subjunctive and those that don't.  This will not matter to those simply looking for a passport to unremarkable employment----so maybe that is unimportant.

Just acknowledge what all this is, the elimination of education for job training.

[fizzycist]

UCONN is a strong flagship. Batting well above expectation for a state with 3.5M population (in the fields I'm familiar with). I doubt it got there by kowtowing to the Student Whims of the Day or by neglecting to recruit the best faculty scholars!

But hey you enjoy teaching your Business and Marketing majors at Efficiency U, imma be over here pursuing truth and discovery with my philosophers and mathematicians.

[kaysixteen]

If it be true that schools can eliminate sound grammar,  what would it be like were this to become a trend, such that one be not able to feign ignorance of literacy, lest one be not able to think soundly.  I would fain understand such, lest I remain in darkness and let mine stupor reign.

[kaysixteen]

Vivat coninuctivus, stulti studentes miserique administratores parasitici.

[dismalist]

Vivat coninuctivus, stulti studentes miserique administratores parasitici.

Touché! [Toccare]

[methodsman]

Thanks. All you clever faculty reacted as I expected you would.  You took the bait.

mm

[AJ_Katz]

A follow-up letter to the editor regarding the situation at UConn:
https://www.chronicle.com/blogs/letters/what-our-academic-program-review-is-actually-about

[Langue_doc]

Florida again, so what else is new?

Republicans Target Social Sciences to Curb Ideas They Don't Like
Conservatives in Florida have moved from explosive politics to subtler tactics to uproot liberal "indoctrination" in higher education by removing subjects like sociology from core requirements.

Shared link above.

Some paragraphs from the article:

The slashing of core classes across the state, which has often been based on course titles and descriptions, is meant to comply with a state law passed last year that curbed "identity politics" in the curriculum. The law also bars classes from the core that "distort significant historical events" or that include theories that "systemic racism, sexism, oppression, and privilege are inherent in the institutions of the United States."

Florida has become a testing ground for a raft of conservative policies meant to limit or expunge what Republicans describe as "woke" indoctrination in the state's schools and colleges. Faculty and student critics have said this latest effort infringes on university autonomy and could reduce students' exposure to courses they believe are necessary for a well-rounded education. Academic freedom advocates worry it marks a new, more organized approach.

Rather than trying to regulate what a professor can and cannot say — a legally questionable tactic — the new strategy is taking aim at entire courses.

The state's scrutiny of the curriculum in the public colleges could serve as a model for Republican efforts in other states, as colleges are bracing for the return to power of President-elect Donald J. Trump, who has vowed "to reclaim our once great educational institutions from the radical Left."

Already, lawmakers elsewhere have turned their attention to universities' curriculums.

The Wyoming Senate this year passed a bill, rejected by the House, that would have defunded gender studies programs at the University of Wyoming. At Texas A&M University, the Board of Regents directed the president this month to eliminate "low-producing" programs, which included an L.G.B.T.Q. minor targeted by a lawmaker. At the University of North Texas, administrators removed terms like "race" and "gender" from some course titles, a move some faculty believe was in response to a state law banning diversity, equity and inclusion offices on campuses.

The 22 courses that trustees marked for removal at Florida International University are heavily focused on social sciences, including Introduction to East Asia, Intercultural/Interracial Communication and Labor and Globalization. More than two dozen other courses updated their descriptions to comply with the law. Similar efforts — though the exact number of courses affected wasn't immediately clear — played out across the state's public universities.