Officials review academic programs

Academic programs still are being evaluated for prioritization.

Programs placed in the “phase out” or elimination category, and some that were not, will be reviewed this month to see if they are functioning well enough to keep.

“Most people don’t realize this, but academic programs are reviewed on a cycle every year,” said Kent Buchanan, interim provost and vice president for academic affairs. “Prioritization was a little different in that we reviewed all the programs at the same time.”

Prioritization allowed officials to see where university money was being spent and determine if changes should be made to academic and support programs.

In the past, the program review was done by a strategic planning committee. After the prioritization process was complete, officials decided there needed to be a different plan for how to review programs.

“We learned so much from prioritization that we felt that we needed to update the plan,” Buchanan said. “So instead of the strategic planning committee reviewing these programs, we decided to review them the same way we did during prioritization.”

The deans of the programs that are to be evaluated will meet with Buchanan, the vice president of enrollment management and the chief financial officer of the university. They will begin reviewing the academic programs that fell into the “reduce funding” or “phase out” category of the final report.

They also will review programs that were not on the list but have reasons to be reviewed such as lower enrollment or changes already happening to the programs.

These programs include,

MSN (Masters in Nursing)
Entertainment Business
MM (Masters in Music)
Studio Art
Criminal Justice (both UG and GR)
Exercise Science (with Human Performance and Kinesiology figured in)
Film Production
Mass Communications
Religion (all programs)
Singapore
MLA
TESOL
MBA
MSCS (Masters in Computer Science)
Software Engineering

If a program is found to be in need of deactivation, they will follow the normal procedure of faculty and administrators reviewing the courses. Once the program has been approved for elimination, it will then move to academic committee for final approval.

“Any time a program is proposed or deactivated it has to go through several steps,” Buchanan said. “What we will be doing is looking at the similar data from the prioritization process and be evaluating programs that may need to be deactivated or may need additional resources.”

After this year, the review process will go back to its normal rotation of programs to be evaluated.

“I think students are tired of the constant feeling that our programs are going to be cut,” said Joseph Smith, exercise science senior. “Reviewing is good but let’s not drag it out anymore than it already has been.”

The cabinet will host an open forum for the campus community to ask questions about prioritization and initiatives the cabinet has set to “guide their future planning.”

These initiatives include,