Weekly Briefing

Low-enrollment majors need to change, university says

Illustration by The Chronicle; image from 636Buster, Wikimedia Commons

Reinvent yourselves and potentially merge with other programs. That’s the message that the leaders of 18 low-enrollment undergraduate majors at Miami University, in Ohio, got this semester.

In a document shared with affected department chairs, the provost’s office wrote that the university cannot afford its current academic programs, and that the “unprecedented fiscal, societal, and political challenges” that the university is facing are part of a “larger troubling higher education landscape.”

Miami, like other institutions, is dealing with a difficult situation. For example, at a recent Faculty Assembly meeting, university leaders discussed a drop in college applications in Ohio, along with reduced state appropriations, The Miami Student reported.

But these issues and the university’s subsequent financial woes are not professors’ fault, the office of the provost wrote in its document. Still, departments must work with one another to develop interdisciplinary, cross-departmental collaborations.

What are the low-enrolled programs?
Seventy-two percent of students are enrolled in 30 majors, Elizabeth Reitz Mullenix, the provost, said in an interview on Tuesday.

Mullenix met recently with chairs of departments that have programs with fewer than 35 students enrolled, to discuss how to “reimagine the curriculum.”

Some of those low-enrollment programs include art history; French; health communication; religion; and women’s, gender, and sexuality studies, among others (read the full list here).

During the meeting, Mullenix added that the Board of Trustees didn’t mandate the reinvention, but that board members were paying attention to trends at the university and that majors in higher demand needed more resources. Still, she reassured department chairs that if they were involved in their department’s transformation, their own departments wouldn’t be drastically gutted.

How will the programs adjust?
This past summer, a steering committee — assembled by Mullenix — put together a document about the future of the humanities. There the group outlined options for the majors. They could consider:

1. Developing, revising, or focusing energy on a minor or certificate program
2. Proposing “creative and exciting” new courses or other learning opportunities, like workshops or winter-term offerings
3. Combining stand-alone majors into a singular major with many concentrations
4. Collaborating with other departments on a “super” major or degree program

For some professors, the call for change is still concerning. Elena Jackson Albarrán, an associate professor of history and global and intercultural studies, said that the target programs are part of the university’s identity, and cutting them would be a “big identity shift.”

Mila Ganeva, a professor who heads the department of German, Russian, Asian and Middle Eastern languages and cultures, said that her unit was asked to come up with “innovative ways to move forward” without losing permanent faculty members. She said professors are working on that plan, but it is not finalized yet.

Read our Emma Pettit’s full story here.

Lagniappe

• Read. This is a reading recommendation about reading. It’s a tour of the author Jennifer Egan’s home library. (The Washington Post)
• Read, again. Most school-library book challenges in the 2021-22 school year came from a small group of people. Meet one of them. She’s challenged 71 books in a Virginia public-school district. (The Washington Post)
• Listen. While the podcast host Ezra Klein is on book leave, Tressie McMillan Cottom, author and associate professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, hosted this episode about boundaries and self-care. (The New York Times)

—Fernanda