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The administration of Simmons University has said that it is planning to close the school’s Department of Philosophy and end its major program.
Philosophy is one of several departments targeted.
“No decisions are final yet,” reports The Boston Globe, adding that “a final plan will be presented to the university’s board in October after university leaders meet with all departments.”
The university, which is women-only at the undergraduate level (but not for its graduate degrees), is facing financial constraints owed partly to what seems like a very bad deal it made with the online learning company 2U, according to which the company gets 50 to 62 percent of the tuition paid by each student in its online programs. According to the Globe, more than half of Simmons’ graduate students are in such online programs. The contract with 2U was made in 2013 and renewed (!) in 2018 for another 21 years.
Faculty were apparently instructed by the administration not to talk to the press. One professor, speaking anonymously to the Globe, says: “Cutting out the humanities and social sciences is like cutting out the heart and then seeing if the body will still walk.”
The current president of Simmons, Lynn Perry Wooten, has an academic specialization in “crisis leadership.”
The post Philosophy Threatened at Simmons University first appeared on Daily Nous.
The administration of the University of Kent is planning to lay off faculty in its Department of Philosophy and other humanities and arts fields.
Members of the Department of Philosophy sent along the following message:
We are writing to alert readers to the fact that the philosophy department is one of several Arts and Humanities departments presently targeted for compulsory redundancies by the University of Kent.
This is not on the grounds of quality: the philosophy department was ranked 3rd in the UK for overall student satisfaction in the most recent national student survey, and 5th in the UK in terms of GPA in the most recent research assessment (2nd for quality of research outputs). The reasoning is based on finances. We understand that the local union disputes some of the figures being used.
The first round of compulsory redundancies is due to take place in July, with more financial cuts planned for the next academic year.
The union has a petition here.
As well as defending jobs, it highlights a particular concern around an agreement they reached with senior management about redundancies.
We in the philosophy department would very much appreciate your support.
Last fall, Kent’s vice chancellor, Karen Cox, and the university’s executive group, had issued the following statement:
Karen and the Executive Group wish to provide a further specific commitment to all Arts and Humanities staff that there will be no compulsory redundancies as a result of the current review.
The petition provides further information:
The guarantee of no compulsory redundancies was made in October last year in response to UCU [University and College Union] opening a ballot for industrial action. The union did not pursue industrial action because of this commitment. Therefore this broken promise has prevented members from having the opportunity to defend their livelihoods.
The administration in February called for volunteers to retire in exchange for a severance package (details of which are unknown), and has is closing its Brussels campus. The administration cites the cap on tuition fees as a contributing factor, though these caps have not been newly imposed (they’ve been in place for at least five budgeting cycles), as well a “multi-million-pound impact from the number of students not staying with us to finish their studies”. It is unclear how many, if any, administrators in budgeting and marketing will be laid off.
As of the time of this article, the union’s petition, which is still open for signing, has approximately 1500 signatories.
The post Philosophy & Other Humanities Fields at Kent Threatened first appeared on Daily Nous.
Programs in philosophy, theology and religion studies, history, mathematics, sociology, literature, and art would at Marymount University in Virginia would all be eliminated if a proposal from the administration is approved by the school’s board of trustees.
While all of the details of the program closures are not known with certainty, they would mean that no students could major in those subjects. Additionally capstone courses and senior seminars in those subjects would be unlikely to continue. Jobs may be on the line, too. One faculty member said, “The administration contends that the humanities will continue to be the foundation of a Marymount education. But without a program in which a professor is based, we don’t know what protections our tenure gives us. The faculty handbook specifies that tenure doesn’t protect faculty when a program is retrenched or eliminated.”
The justification for the proposal is unclear, as well. As one faculty member put it, “Our concerns are that eliminating these programs would only harm the institution (since students who want to major in the humanities wouldn’t come here) and there would be no net financial benefit. There are also reputational harms to the institution.”
This post will be updated with further details as they become available.
UPDATE: There’s a petition you can sign asking the board of trustees to “strongly reconsider the proposal to move forward with these program cuts” here.
UPDATE (2/24/23. 3:58pm): According to a faculty member at Marymount, the cuts were approved by the Board of Trustees today. “No more philosophy majors.”
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