The AFT Guild
…Many faculty and professional staff are worried about this concept because they have seen these sorts of initiatives used elsewhere to gut a variety of academic programs that are deemed “inessential” or that don’t lead students quickly enough to a career. The example of the University of Wisconsin, Stevens Point is illustrative of this:• UW-Stevens Point faces a deficit of $4.5 million over two years because of declining enrollment and lower tuition revenues. It proposes adding or expanding 16 programs in areas with high-demand career paths as a way to maintain and increase enrollment.
• To fund this future investment, resources would be shifted from programs with lower enrollment, primarily in the traditional humanities and social sciences. Although some majors are proposed to be eliminated, courses would continue to be taught in these fields, and minors or certificates will be offered.As a result of this way of thinking, the University was reorganized in such a way that 13 majors including English, History, Philosophy, Political Science, Geography, Geoscience, and a number of languages were eliminated because these programs were not seen as contributing to the financial bottom line of the university. Aquaculture, Fire Science, and English for Teacher Certification (instead of English), on the other hand, made the grade as they shunt students straight through college and into narrowly conceived career paths….
