UALR looks at academic program cuts
Performing arts, engineering on chancellor’s scale-back list
University of Arkansas at Little Rock Chancellor Christina Drale has proposed cutting or reducing numerous academic programs in an effort to “right-size” the student-to-faculty ratio at the shrinking university.
In a memo distributed Monday, Drale outlined her decision-making process behind the proposal — an academic retrenchment plan — and provided a list of which programs would be eliminated, reduced or maintained. She also noted some programs that could be redesigned instead of reduced.
The University of Arkansas System board of trustees must approve the retrenchment plan, which allows the university to terminate tenured faculty.
Students in programs that would be eliminated would be allowed to finish them before the programs phase out, but no new students would be admitted.
The university is undergoing major changes: more than $3 million of current year budget cuts, reorganization of its colleges and new leadership, including Drale, who took over in September.
The university’s enroll
ment has been shrinking for a decade. It faced a $5.6 million deficit going into this year and incurred millions more in shortfalls through a more than 8% drop in enrollment, far more than projected in the budget approved by trustees last year and submitted by former Chancellor Andrew Rogerson. Millions more in shortfalls were revealed after a UA System audit found years of discrepancies in budget reporting, pushing the total deficit beyond $11 million.
For the academic planning and college reorganizations, Drale has sought feedback from community focus groups, including businesses, about what they need from the university and what they don’t need. Faculty, staff and students also have been asked about the university’s strengths and weaknesses.
While campus activity has stalled because of the ongoing spread of covid-19, Drale intends to accept feedback on the proposal through April.
In the 13-page proposal, Drale emphasized maintaining a “liberal arts core” while also aligning professional and research programs with local, regional and statewide demand.
“Our institution’s priorities are based on its role and scope as a public four-year metropolitan university offering a comprehensive curriculum through the doctoral level and maintaining a research portfolio at the Carnegie Research-2 level,” she wrote.
Most education and health programs would be maintained as is, should the proposal be adopted by University of Arkansas System trustees. Some engineering programs would be cut, although most would stay.
The cuts are in response to months of feedback and two committee reports submitted to Drale on March 20. The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette obtained the report submitted by the faculty Faculty Senate Ad Hoc Committee but has been unable to obtain the other, submitted by the Academic Planning Team.
Drale’s proposal summarizes many of the points made by each committee.
Many of Drale’s recommendations match those of the committees, but many also differed in substance while agreeing on needs. For example, both committees noted a need for substantial change in low-sustainability engineering programs but differed on how to approach a reduction, consolidation or elimination of programs.
UALR faculty senate president Amanda Nolen, who said she was speaking only for herself, noted that the proposed cuts are “much deeper” than what either committee recommended.
“It appears as though the Chancellor’s report does not reflect her vision to maintain our R2 research status,” Nolen said in an email.
Drale’s 13-page proposal notes that the university’s performing arts programs have been unsustainable for years and some have low or sometimes nonexistent enrollment.
Among the cuts: consolidating theater and dance and cutting back faculty by about 10 full-time equivalent instructors.
The programs have small class sizes and limited career options, Drale wrote, but running larger general education courses will help their viability.
The faculty senate recommended prioritizing both programs, contending that increased investment would improve the programs’ performance.
Drale argued that the financially strained university doesn’t have a way of investing in those programs. However, she wrote, “by maintaining both curricula even if scaled back, we maintain the option of rebuilding either or both in the future.”
The university also would cut all foreign language study except for Spanish. The faculty senate years ago removed requirements that students have foreign language coursework to graduate with a bachelor’s degree, a growing trend in higher education as schools attempt to increase enrollment. Drale wrote that Spanish appears to be the only program that could sustain itself.
“Although I personally consider second language study an important part of a university education, I recognize that I now have the minority opinion on that issue,” Drale wrote in her proposal.
Drale recommended no changes for several other liberal arts degrees, such as psychology, sociology and anthropology.
For pre-professional programs, Drale recommends keeping several that are in high demand, such as nursing and social work.
But she suggests ending several engineering programs, including some that students are “migrating” out of and into other engineering programs. Drale wants to cut the master of science in Construction Management and reduce the Systems Engineering and Engineering Technology programs to improve their sustainability. Three Systems Engineering programs would be cut and the other programs reduced.
The faculty senate proposal called for suspending Systems Engineering programs while faculty explore whether to transition to an Industrial Engineering program. The committee also urged keeping the master of science in Construction Management because of projected increases in employment in the field.
Nolen also disagreed with the depth of Drale’s proposed cuts to engineering, which she said could hurt their ability to support the engineering doctoral programs.
“I can’t help but reflect on the intersection of these particular cuts with what is happening around us right now,” Nolen said in an email. “It is the ingenuity and research of engineers who will design the necessary solutions to the shortages experienced at hospitals around the world. It is the research in the educational sciences that are guiding us as this nation’s entire academic enterprise has been severely disrupted.”
Architectural and construction engineering and environmental engineering programs would be suspended under Drale’s proposal.
The environmental engineering program is the only one in Arkansas and is a fast-growing discipline nationwide, according to the faculty senate report. But its value at UALR is diminished because of a lack of resources, the report states.
“The program is not accredited and is not likely to acquire accreditation due to lack of faculty resources,” the proposal reads. “The internal demand indicated steady enrollment growth until the departure of the program faculty in December 2018. Since that time the enrollment has declined from its height of 25 students to 5 students currently enrolled in the program.”
Other programs that would be reduced: chemistry, English, history, music, mass communications and political science.
Other degree programs that would be eliminated include environmental health and sciences, community management and development, international studies, legal studies and education leadership programs.
In her proposal, Drale argued that the educational leadership programs aren’t licensure programs and employers aren’t demanding the degrees.
The Academic Planning Team recommended eliminating most of the programs.
But the Faculty Senate Ad Hoc Committee report recommended keeping two educational leadership Ph.D. programs — higher education and educational administration.”