by University of Vermont Provost and Senior Vice President Patricia Prelock On December 2, 2020, College of Arts and Sciences Dean Bill Falls announced a plan to phase out 12 of the college’s 56 majors, 11 of its 63 minors, and 4 of its 10 master’s degree programs. These difficult programmatic decisions were the result of careful thought and consultation over the last several years and were informed by both enrollment data and a holistic analysis of the college’s structure and offerings, and guided by a commitment to the future success of the College of Arts and Sciences.
Together, enrollment in all of the undergraduate majors proposed for termination accounts for only 3% of all CAS degrees awarded each year. The minors proposed for termination account for only 1% of all minors completed by graduates each year.
Students enrolled in the affected majors and minors will be able to complete their requirements and robust course offerings in most of the impacted subject areas will remain available to students across the college and the university.
UVM’s commitment to the liberal arts remains strong.
Last spring the university adopted a new 42-credit general education curriculum grounded in the liberal arts and required for all undergraduate students. College of Arts and Sciences courses in the arts, humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences are integral to this curriculum.
The teaching effort that faculty in low enrollment majors and minors must dedicate to small upper-level offerings will instead be dedicated to instruction at introductory and intermediate levels, increasing access to these important liberal arts disciplines for all UVM students.
The College of Arts and Sciences will continue to offer 44 majors:
- 13 in the Arts and Humanities
- 13 in the Natural Sciences
- 10 in the Social Sciences
- 8 Interdisciplinary
The College of Arts and Sciences will continue to offer 52 minors:
- 19 in the Arts and Humanities
- 16 Interdisciplinary
- 10 in the Social Sciences
- 7 in the Natural Sciences
The College of Arts and Sciences will continue to offer majors in 5 languages, and minors in 6 languages. The college’s foreign language requirement remains in place. The proposed School of Languages will provide a unified location for students to explore language offerings and increase collaborative projects and programming.
The college faces a structural deficit of over $8 million in FY21. This is the deficit that remains even after the annual additional $2 million the university has allocated to the college. Without any action, this is projected to increase to $10.1 million in the next fiscal year (FY22). The university will redirect funds from other areas to address approximately half of the current deficit. As part of our fiscal responsibility, we have taken university-wide actions such as:
- Delayed construction on capital projects
- Instituted a hiring freeze for all but the most essential positions
- Instituted a freeze on all non-essential spending
- Reduced staff salaries (progressive scale from 2.5% to 5%)
- Reduced administrator salaries (5%, with senior leaders taking an 8.33% cut)[1]
- Reduced budgets in all administrative areas
- Reduced budgets in all academic areas
- Offered early retirement incentives
- Consolidated the delivery of administrative services wherever possible
This type of intervention is not sustainable. The college’s enrollment has declined, and this is a major factor contributing to its ongoing structural deficit. Since 2010:
- Students enrolling in the liberal arts majors are down 21%
- Credit hours taught are down 16%
The programmatic decisions also reflect UVM’s commitment to providing our students with an array of well-resourced programs that can maintain strong enrollments in majors and foster the vitality necessary to achieve a high-quality academic experience.
The changes will provide the college with an opportunity to more closely align its resources with areas of high enrollment demand, and to expand course offerings and capacity in those areas.
The college will continue to provide an outstanding liberal arts education, with courses across all disciplines contributing to competencies that faculty have identified as core to the college’s educational mission, including:
- Intercultural/Global Fluency & Foreign Language Skills
- Ethical Reasoning & Decision Making
- Analytical & Critical Thinking
- Quantitative Reasoning/Applied Data Interpretation
- Creative Expression and Innovation
- Teamwork, Collaboration & Leadership
- Written, Visual, and Oral Communication
- Information & Digital Literacy
The University’s resources are finite. Careful stewardship of our resources—and the difficult decisions that come with this—are an essential part of our institutional responsibility to UVM students, alums, and the State of Vermont. The evaluation of low-enrollment majors/minors/programs is not limited to the College of Arts and Sciences, but is an exercise all colleges are undertaking, and will continue to do so on an annual basis.
We are redoubling our efforts to strengthen a liberal arts core with high-quality, well-resourced offerings in the face of sea changes in higher education including great financial uncertainties. Our central focus has been and remains the success of our students and the quality of their education and co-curricular experience. This is articulated as the core of our strategic vision and our academic success goals.
Information at the following sites may provide further useful context:
Insider Higher Ed: Annotations to the U of Vermont Story by Matt Reed
Saint Albans Messenger: No Ancient Greek at UVM? By Emerson Lynn
[1] Notably, the management and executive team is well below the norm for public institutions with similar research activities (5.6 management/executive staff per 1,000 students versus an average of 9.8).