The University of Connecticut is continuing its review of small programs and is currently planning to consolidate, or has already consolidated, five undergraduate programs, two graduate certificate programs, one master’s program and no Ph.D. programs.
UConn is also reviewing 40 undergraduate programs, 21 graduate certificate programs, 11 master’s programs and no PhD programs for potential closure or consolidation, according to university documents.
Last year, UConn undertook a similar large review of programs, where approximately 245 programs with what UConn defined as “low enrollment” had to submit evaluation reports, according to The Daily Campus.
In the review, low enrollment was defined as an undergraduate program with 100 or fewer completions in the past five years, a master’s degree with 50 or fewer completions, a graduate certificate with 25 or fewer completions, or a doctoral degree with 10 or fewer completions.
Following the prior review, 12 small programs were suspended and three were cut at the board of trustees meeting Dec. 12, 2024. Some programs which were below this threshold have to submit another evaluation report, while others are not required to.
Sam Sommers, an English and American Studies professor at UConn, said after hearing about potential cuts, she looked in the folder where the documents on major cuts were present last year. That folder, which outlines UConn’s plan for the review of small programs this year, is accessible to anyone with a UConn NetID.
“This feels like a continuation of last year,” Sommers said in a phone interview. “We hadn’t really heard anything about cuts until maybe about two weeks ago. […] And I just kind of saw that, oh my goodness, this is just the same stuff with a different year on it.”
While these documents have key identifying categories that UConn has placed majors into, Sommers said that she does not know what these categories actually mean. Categories include majors with a consolidation that is planned or in progress, programs which have already been closed or suspended, programs which will be reviewed further and programs which do not have to participate in the review process.
“For example, I am part of the American Studies Program, which is listed as ‘CON’ and we have had no discussions about consolidation of our program,” Sommers said.
Martha Cutter, the area director of American Studies, said that “CON” in this case means that the major was already consolidated. American Studies was placed in the new Department of Social and Critical Inquiry two years ago, which incorporates programs including Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Asian and Asian American Studies and Native American Studies, according to Cutter.
UConn classifies this as a consolidation even though American studies still exists as an independent major. The Department of Critical and Social Inquiry is not listed on the spreadsheet of UConn documents.
“So, we were told that was, in our case, a form of consolidation and was last year when they had a low program review,” Cutter said. “We were told you don’t have to go through that because you know you’re in this new department.”
Cutter said that American Studies was not under any direct mandate to consolidate at the moment both because her department is new and because it is already considered consolidated. The former provost Anne D’Alleva told her that UConn did not expect to get rid of American Studies, according to Cutter.
“I mean, there’s been some pressure, I will say, but we are not under a directive to do that right now,” Cutter said. “There’s no directive or prescribed plan that we must consolidate our programs.”
Graduate programs are among those listed as being a risk of cuts. If graduate programs close, shrink or are consolidated, it means that there will be fewer graduate students to act as teaching assistants for first-year classes, according to Sommers.
“When that starts, you have situation where either you have full time faculty now staffing like, beginning language classes or some of the smaller language study sections, or you have adjuncts teaching those subjects, or you have people have a very limited portfolio of courses, “ Sommers said. “[At] the English department, for example, recent hires have been focused on first year writing only, as opposed to hiring someone who will contribute a wide variety of courses to the to the program.”
Michele Back, a professor of world languages education said that Jason Irizarry, the Neag dean was very transparent with professors in the department and let them know about his talks with the administration in a phone interview.
“I was under the understanding like the administration had kind of floated this last year. There was a lot of reaction to it, and so they walked it back,” Back said, adding that she found out about these cuts on Oct. 29. “Our dean came and talked to us at our Teacher Education meeting about it.”
All elementary education programs are listed as one program on the spreadsheet detailing major counts, while secondary education programs are split by major. The combined number of students enrolled in secondary education programs would exceed the minimum threshold required to exclude programs from the review process.
“All of these students are taking the same classes with the exception of their methods classes, which are content specific. But they’re all going through the same program. They’re all taking the same classes,” Back said. “These should be counted together. So it’s really a counting error on the part of the of the administration.”
Back highlighted the Neag School’s importance to the state of Connecticut in providing teachers. Professors at UConn received emails from principals asking for teachers who teach different subjects.
“We’re providing a service to the state,” Back said. “These are critical shortage areas. That means that if we’re getting three Spanish teachers out into the state, that’s better than having zero Spanish teachers. […] Our main responsibility is to the state and to provide these teachers for the state. So it would be very short sighted of the administration to eliminate these programs.”
Back stated that Neag has been proactively recruiting new students and established an early college experience course in Connecticut high schools which focuses on teaching as a profession. Neag’s Teacher Certification Program for College Graduates, which is only at satellite campuses, saw an increase in enrollment.
University documents detail UConn’s planned timeline for this year’s low-enrollment program review. In October, deans, associate deans and department heads were given updated data and templates on the review and were asked to begin working on evaluation reports of low-enrollment programs.
In early November, programs were asked to submit evaluation reports to deans and have deans review them. Deans are meant to submit these reports and memos on program modification decisions, meaning decisions to close or consolidate courses to the Provost’s Office by 9 a.m. today.
UConn deputy spokesperson Mike Enright commented on the major cuts in an email.
“Faculty members lead and are the decision makers in curricular revisions,” Enright said. “Any new or revised program must have a curriculum that is developed and approved by relevant faculty and shared governance (e.g., school/college curriculum committees). Faculty are central to any review or revision process and provide all relevant information.”
Initial reports of program closure or consolidation decisions will be sent to the board of trustees for Dec. 3, according to university documents.
Final reports of program closure or consolidation decisions will be sent to the board of trustees by their February meeting, the date of which has not been announced.
“We are required, as per the standards of our institutional accreditor, to ensure students can complete the program that they enroll in,” Enright said. “Any change where a program may be suspended or closed, regardless of whether this is due to the review of low-completion programs or for any other reason, must be accompanied by a teach-out plan that ensures these students can finish and complete their degrees.”
Enright said that if students are accepted into an undergraduate program at UConn, they will be able to graduate from that program.
“A decision to close or consolidate an undergraduate major into something new will still have at least five years where that program will continue to be offered to the students who were already in the program,” Enright said.
Enright said that decisions to close graduate programs that are more flexible in their dates because master’s degrees and graduate certificates do not take as long to complete as a bachelor’s degree, but similar standards apply. This would still be a process that takes place over years and has a teach-out plan, according to Enright.