The University of Connecticut Board of Trustees voted to add two departments under the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences during their Feb. 28 meeting.
These programs will combine existing smaller units into larger programs meant to improve resources, research and engagement opportunities, according to The Daily Campus. The Department of Social Inquiry will combine the American Studies Program, Asian and Asian American Studies, Native American and Indigenous Studies Initiative and Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies Program. The new Department of Geography, Sustainability, Community and Urban Studies will combine each of the programs in its name as well as the current environmental studies program.
The Editorial Board commends the new additions, and we recognize the value that each of these brings to students as part of a holistic education. Additionally, we hope these new departments usher in a period of increased control by educators from underrepresented, oppressed communities in the direction of their own departments. However, the context of this decision is very important and makes the timing very confusing.
This university is currently facing a budget crisis, with threats to slash the budgets of all academic programs by at least 15%. In this situation, you would typically expect programs to be cut instead of new programs to be created, so it is odd that this decision is made specifically now. Although this change is marketed as being a “new addition,” which brings with it the connotation of new funds being necessary, it is really just the consolidation of existing programs and funds into one larger conglomerate. This brings with it a new set of problems, considering that each individual unit must now attempt to coordinate its efforts with other groups as part of this new department while being stripped of the funding needed just to stay afloat. Overall, this misleading language seems like a tactic to divert attention from the decay of academics by touting the new departments.
The specifics of these consolidated programs are of interest as well. It is no secret that these liberal arts programs are the most susceptible to budget cuts; given that they are not of interest to large amounts of corporate support like the College of Engineering. One professor of American Studies, now part of the Department of Social Inquiry, previously described these budget cuts as “catastrophic and operationally impossible” to departments like hers, according to The Daily Campus.
If all these programs are facing potential decimation, as their professors fear, then what is better for the university’s image: cutting two departments or almost 10 smaller programs? The consolidation of some of the most vulnerable targets of cost cutting can’t result in a clean sweep of erasing an incredible amount of programs all at once which are crucial to fulfilling the academic mission of this university.
It would be nice to hope that this change is just for the benefit of students interested in these very relevant and important topics; but given the current situation this university is in, and its track record for improperly explaining the motive and direction behind its actions, we are concerned that, rather than offering new academic opportunities for students and faculty, these new departments are instead set up to fail.