UW-Stevens Points scraps plans to drop 6 majors

[Ellipsis]

University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point officials have scrapped plans to drop six liberal arts majors to help cope with a projected budget deficit.

University officials said Wednesday they will retain majors in French, German, history, geography, geoscience and two art concentrations.

The school announced last year it planned to eliminate 13 programs and lay off staff to help solve a projected $4.5 million budget deficit over two years.

The proposal generated intense criticism. In November administrators scaled the number of majors set for elimination back to six, citing resignations and retirements but faculty and students still called for regents to fire them.

School officials said in a news release Wednesday that additional resignations and retirements have enable them to save the remaining programs. University spokeswoman Nick Schultz said a total of 89 staffers have left the school over the last two years.

https://www.wpr.org/uw-stevens-points-scraps-plans-drop-6-majors

[TexasTowelie]

1. It appears to be a mixed blessing:

Did We Save UW-Stevens Point On The Backs of Faculty

The University of Wisconsin Stevens Point made national news last year when it announced that it was scaling back liberal arts offerings and eliminating a number of majors. Nobody was giving them kudos at the time but they were struggling under a deficit and declining enrollments.

But not, low and behold, they have weathered the storm and will continue to review and restructure their programs and they aren’t doing it via the original program eliminations.

And just how did they make this miraculous turnaround? Well here’s the feel good version of the story:

-snip-

My question revolves around the resignations…and the retirements. How many of the faculty and staff resigned or retired because of the original announcements and turmoil at UW-SP? Rather than wait and see…did they take an earlier retirement than planned? And the resignations…did they take the logical path and find a new job before they were terminated? To me, this isn’t manna from heaven but a heavy handed way to force faculty out. (I don’t know if the UW works like a business…but if someone resigns they seldom get severance). So did we save the university at the ycost of the well being of the faculty?? Well, maybe so:

http://bloggingblue.com/2019/04/did-we-save-uw-stevens-point-on-the-backs-of-faculty/

Losing 130 FTEs will have a serious effect on the quality of education. The people that resigned will have difficulty finding other employment at their age, even with post-graduate degrees.