HSU pitches degree-cut plan
English, math among 25 programs proposal would remove
A cost-savings plan to phase out some 25 degree programs at Henderson State University — including English, mathematics and biology — will be considered Thursday by the Arkansas State University System Board of Trustees.
Financial problems at the Arkadelphia campus date back years now, but in February the university’s top administrator, Chuck Ambrose, called for urgent action to address a budget shortfall, depleted savings and what he called a “not sustainable” percentage of student accounts going unpaid.
The proposal announced Monday calls for cuts to 88 faculty positions, including 56 tenured positions, for projected savings over two years of $5.3 million. Information published on the university’s website states that 67 of the positions are currently filled.
Trustees on Thursday are also to consider an alternate recommendation from a faculty-appointed financial exigency committee. The group has recommended that about 32 faculty positions be eliminated along with 12 programs, some of which, like French and German, are listed as academic minors on the Henderson State website.
The committee has said their proposed cuts would result in a cost savings of $3.7 million.
Marck Beggs said he has been an English professor at Henderson State for 25 years.
He referred back to past financial problems, which led state legislators in 2020 to convene a hearing specifically to consider what led to the university’s substantial deficits. Henderson State’s financial struggles resulted in a merger with the ASU System.
Beggs on Monday said in an email it was “positively criminal” that past university leaders “were all allowed to walk away — with no accountability — into new jobs and opportunities.”
“Meanwhile, 88 faculty members (and numerous staff members) just got the rug pulled out from beneath us. Every aspect of this has been troubling and demeaning,” Beggs said.
Despite the proposed cuts, current students as well as new freshmen arriving this fall would be “supported” in completing their degrees if enrolled in any of the programs being phased out, according to the administration’s proposal.
The plan put forward by Ambrose states that while degree programs would be phased out, academic dis
ciplines included in those programs would “continue to be incorporated through the general education and interdisciplinary studies curriculum to enhance outcomes for all students.”
Additional programs on the list for elimination in the plan announced Monday included bachelor’s degree programs in history, political science, criminal justice, early childhood development, studio art, theatre arts and Spanish.
While 25 academic degree programs were listed, in a few cases the programs offered both a Bachelor of Arts and a Bachelor of Science degree option, or, in the case of a degree program in radiography, an associate degree option. A graduate degree program in liberal arts also was proposed for elimination.
The proposal released Monday stated that recommendations from both the financial exigency committee and from the university’s administration were made after reviewing “data related to academic costs and net marginal costs, student outcomes and completion, and labor market and workforce demand.”
Ahead of the recommendations from Ambrose — chancellor at the university since November — phone calls went out Monday informing faculty members who would lose jobs with the recommended cuts.
“We wanted to be as transparent as possible with those possibly affected and share the news ourselves before they heard elsewhere,” ASU System spokesman Jeff Hankins said in an email.
For positions being eliminated, Hankins said that tenured faculty would be given 12 months notice, so their jobs would end with the close of the next academic year.
Non-tenured faculty could lose their jobs May 31, Hankins said.
James Engman, a biology professor and president of the university’s faculty senate, called the proposed cuts announced Monday “much more drastic” than the recommendations from the faculty-appointed financial exigency committee.
Hankins, when asked if faculty members will speak at the meeting Thursday, said he did not have specific details about the meeting but that speakers normally are not allowed.
Told of Hankins’ remark, Engman, in a text message, said: “I find it extremely problematic, and telling, that the BOT would not want to give the faculty the opportunity to speak, in such a serious situation.”
Back in February, the university’s faculty senate had formally agreed that the university was in a state of financial exigency, a process outlined in the university’s faculty handbook that can result in a hastening of program eliminations and reductions.
Actions already taken at the Arkadelphia campus include one-day-per-week furloughs affecting staff, faculty and administrative positions.
Ambrose, in his written message Monday to the campus, stated that the university, which enrolled 2,919 students last fall, “cannot grow our way out of this challenge without implementing significant academic restructuring.”