At the University of Connecticut’s Board of Trustees meeting on Wednesday, the provost’s review, the introduction of early decision and a review of Student Evaluation of Teaching (SET) surveys were discussed.
UConn’s American Association of University Professors’ president Chris Vials spoke about the provost’s review, where approximately 245 academic programs are at risk of getting cut, ahead of the Board of Trustees’ next meeting on Dec. 11. There is also a reserved meeting date of Nov. 20.
“I want to stress that faculty understand accountability and as a former director of a small program myself, I dutifully completed annual reviews and generated elaborate self-study for external review,” said Vials. “We all know that making a case for your program comes with the territory of running a major.”
Vials said he had issues with the focus on the number of enrollments and stated that budget neutrality in low enrollment programs is common.
“The sole metric seemingly in this process is centering around the number of students who complete a major even though those of us who have been here for years know that there is much more to a course of study,” said Vials. “We have been told that this review process involves more than one metric, but we will have to wait until December 1 to see if that is truly the case.”
Vials said he viewed the timeline for the review as “extremely rapid,” with less than a semester for forms to be completed.
Vials said it was not clear to him that low enrollment programs demand more resources. He stated that faculty engage in common sense academic “housekeeping” frequently in a process known as faculty governance.
“We found that some of the majors on the provost’s list were cut already and some are being phased out by the faculty,” Vials said.
Board Chairman Daniel Toscano spoke about the low enrollment program review and stated his concerns about the presentation of information.
“I was pretty distressed to read what was cascading around the media for the past few weeks,” said Toscano.
He said he viewed the cuts as normal and that major changes occur over time.
“I think we all, as a board, believe that to be normal and expected part of running a healthy organization,” said Toscano. “The goal of this is not to close a program. To me, closing any major is a failure.”
Evaluation reports will be made public ahead of the December Board of Trustees meeting, according to Toscano.
University of Connecticut president Radenka Maric gave a report where she spoke about the groundbreaking on the new nursing building. The Institutional Advancement Committee also brought up the possibility of naming opportunities later on in the meeting.
Maric also discussed the Higher Education Sustainability Advisory Board, which is reviewing data on enrollment for public higher education institutions within Connecticut.
Slides from Maric’s presentation list data requested by the board ahead of UConn’s presentation to the board on Nov. 18. Data requested by the board includes information on low enrollment programs and institutional efforts to address low enrollment, along with a housing plan and the latest fiscal year 2026 financial forecast.
Maric also spoke about early decision being introduced this year, where prospective undergraduate students who apply early decision will find out if they are accepted sooner, but will not be able to change school decision after acceptance.
“This is going to attract more and better students to UConn,” said Toscano.
The Board of Trustees approved the introduction of a bachelor’s of music in jazz. According to the Board’s agenda, this program will be cost neutral and will have about 20 students.
“There are no budgetary impacts from the program as all required classes are [currently] offered in the more generalist Music degree program,” the agenda states.
The Board also approved the appointment of Ji-Cheng Zhao, Ph.D., to the Raytheon Technologies chair in fuel cell technology in the College of Engineering. Board member Bryan Pollard abstained from this vote.
The Board also approved the reappointment of Professor Yiming Qian to the Toscano family chair in finance in the School of Business. Toscano abstained from this vote.
University Senate President Laura Burton mentioned faculty concern regarding the low enrollment program review.
Burton said that the faculty standards committee was reviewing the SET survey. She said that there was a decline in the number of SET survey evaluations completed, which are done online.
A trustee stated that the survey questions have not been reviewed in 20 years, meaning that they do not reflect online lessons and teaching.
“This form was created before we had an online presence,” said the trustee.
Burton said that the university senate will to start talking to faculty and students about the form.
“This is probably going to be [a] multi-year process,” said Burton.
UConn’s chief financial officer Jeffery Geoghegan said that UConn and UConn Health had budgets favorable to the previous budget, with $6 million more than assumed in the budget due to above predicted enrollment increasing tuition and fee revenue.
During the public comment period of the meeting, Kathy Fischer from the UConn Professional Employees Association asked the Board of Trustees for a tuition waiver for the child of a deceased employee who worked at UConn for 27 years. The student gave a written public comment at the previous Board of Trustees meeting.
Fischer said that the student was not contacted by the Board of Trustees after the meeting. Vials also voiced support for the tuition waiver. Another UConn employee, Mary Ellen Petersen, also voiced support for the student in the public comment session of the meeting.
Correction: This article was updated on Nov. 1 to clarify the name of an association.
Update: This article was updated on Nov. 1 to include the name of an employee who spoke at the meeting.