Faculty in the Languages, Cultures and Literature (LCL) department voted against cuts to all individual majors in the department on Wednesday and Thursday. A university spreadsheet listing majors at risk of cuts contains misleading data.
The faculty vote means that all majors in the department, excluding Spanish, will submit evaluation reports and undergo the provost’s review.
The department first scheduled to meet on Oct. 16, where they were asked to vote to merge all majors in the department into a single LCL major, to merge all majors except Spanish or to retain all majors, with all majors excluding Spanish submitting an evaluation report.
Spanish does not need to submit an evaluation report because it is above the threshold for evaluation.
This vote was held due to the provost’s review, where undergraduate majors with 100 or fewer enrolled students were asked to accept a cut or submit an evaluation report defending their continued existence. According to a university spreadsheet with misleading data, 70 undergraduate academic plans, 72 master’s degree programs, 76 graduate certificate programs and 27 doctoral programs are below thresholds and are at risk of getting cut.
Misleading major counts
Spanish professor Rosa Helena Chinchilla expressed concern that degree conferral numbers were not made public, making it harder to verify if degree totals are correct.
University documents listing undergraduate majors say that 70 “Academic Plans” are at risk of getting cut.
A university statement to the College of Agriculture, Health and Natural Resources faculty from Dean Indrajeet Chaubey says that the press made incorrect statements regarding CAHNR majors.
“In press coverage, incorrect statements were made about some CAHNR programs flagged as having low completion/enrollment,” the statement says. “For example, it was stated that Animal Science was below the threshold for review.”
A university spreadsheet covering “low enrollment majors” at risk lists that the Associate’s degree in animal science is an “Academic Plan” below the threshold, meaning that it is at risk of getting cut. However, the undergraduate major animal science is above the threshold, meaning that it is not at risk.
Horticulture, Turfgrass and Soil Science are also listed as “Academic Plans” on the spreadsheet.
“Similarly, Horticulture, Turfgrass, and Soil Science were highlighted as ‘no enrollment,’ which is true because they are no longer active majors,” the statement says. “However, they are still offered as concentrations within the active Sustainable Plant & Soil Systems/Plant Science major.”
The spreadsheet does not define what is meant by an academic plan and does not differentiate between concentrations and majors. While a page of the spreadsheet titled “low enrollment majors” marks associate degrees “AAS,” a spreadsheet page covering undergraduate programs in the CAHNR does not differentiate between undergraduate majors and associate degrees.
LCL vote
Italian professor Andrea Celli spoke about the impact of these cuts.
“This is something that created a lot of anxiety among the smallest programs,” Celli said. “Some of the majors that were named were Arabic, Italian [and] Judaic Studies.”
He said that the proposed alternative to keeping majors was establishing concentrations within the LCL as a way to protect the smallest majors.
“That was presented as a continuation of the cuts that were announced in December 2023,” Celli said. “The Dean’s Office, through a department head, suggested the solution was to make all the majors disappear and create a new one and then we should have many concentrations.”
Chinchilla spoke about the impact of languages.
“Languages are important. For the state, they’re important and I think they’re important for federal grants and federal money that we get,” Chinchilla said. “And I understand that maybe not all the languages fall under that rubric, but I still believe that languages that are spoken in the state by different minorities should be part of the curriculum of the university.”
A statement from University of Connecticut President Radenka Maric and Provost Anne D’Alleva stated that humanities are not being targeted.
“There is a narrative taking hold that the humanities are being targeted at UConn. Nothing could be further from the truth,” the statement says. “We want to have vibrant humanities at UConn – this is essential to our mission as a flagship and Land Grant institution.”
Maric and D’Alleva’s statement outlined potential outcomes of the evaluation.
“This may include continuing the program as it is; making changes to the program such as curricular updates or consolidating it with others to increase its appeal to students; continuing the program with a strategic plan designed to increase levels of enrollment; or the closure of the program,” the statement said.
Budget cuts
Celli explained that the goal of the review process was to continue budget cuts announced last year. UConn announced last year that it would implement 15% budget cuts over the next five years.
“The goal of the review was to […] implement budget cuts,” Celli said. “So in the mind of most of my colleagues, this was not something new but a continuation of budget cuts that were announced in December 2023.”
Celli said that faculty were not clearly told what was happening and why the university was continuing with cuts. He also said that faculty had heard from multiple sources that the impact of cuts to majors on the university budget would be limited.
“A problem that we have is we don’t feel the information is clear,” Celli said. “Is there a crisis? Or if there is no crisis, why we are doing it anyway?”
University Spokesperson Stephanie Reitz responded to this in a statement.
“No changes would be made in a vacuum based on budget considerations; they would reflect the outcome of the in-depth, holistic review process that balances the many considerations at hand,” Reitz said.
According to Celli, the cuts were announced to LCL faculty and department heads in mid-September. Celli criticized the speed with which the evaluation process is taking place.
“I think the faculty felt it was very rushed and there was really no time to do things properly,” Celli said.
Chinchilla explained the impact of information on budget cuts becoming public.
“Parents have been calling and students have been calling, and they should, to the provost’s office, and frankly to the Board of Trustees,” Chinchilla said. “I think that they should also let the Board of Trustees know that the way they’re proceeding is unprecedented and really creating havoc for us.”
Prior to the Dec. 11 meeting, the Board of Trustees will meet on Wednesday.
Maric and D’Alleva’s statement says that programs change and close over time.
“Given the budget situation of the university, evaluation of low-enrollment/completion programs is essential to ensure that we maintain the right balance of programs to support our institutional mission, standards of accreditation, and to meet the needs of our students, in addition to being common sense academic ‘housekeeping’ the university should engage in on a regular basis,” Radenka and D’Alleva said in the statement.
Connecticut Senate President Pro-Tempore Martin Looney weighed in on the cuts in a press release.
“UConn is proud of its ranking as a Research 1 university, which only three percent of American colleges and universities achieve,” Looney said. “Therefore, it is incongruous that Connecticut’s flagship state university is adopting a Wal-Mart-like approach to some of its less-popular majors, to the extent that majors graduating only 100 or so students over five years could be put in some sort of academic ‘close-out’ bin.”
According to a presentation by the National Center for Higher Education Management Systems to the Higher Education Sustainability Finance Board, Connecticut has grown less generous in funding higher education as a percentage of personal income since 2010.
“My hope is that the provost’s office will find – perhaps through administrative savings – a way to maintain these courses and programs, in much the same way the General Assembly has year after year found a way to maintain or increase UConn’s funding, even as we contend with state budget spending caps and the end of pandemic federal funding,” Looney said.