Mike Boylan-Kolchin: Removing most or even many of these departments would mean ceasing to function as a university for all intents and purposes. Looking for cost savings by analyzing department “cash flow” is extremely short sighted, there are a lot of interconnected pieces here that are difficult to disentangle.

Removing most or even many of these departments would mean ceasing to function as a university for all intents and purposes. Looking for cost savings by analyzing department “cash flow” is extremely short sighted, there are a lot of interconnected pieces here that are difficult to disentangle.

AUGH shiiiiit. UNC Asheville's Physics program is on the consultants' radar for reduction/elimination. this freaking timeline mountainx.com/news/14-unca...

14 UNCA academic programs highlighted for potential reductions, eliminationmountainx.com An outside consultant recommended the University of North Carolina Asheville examine 14 of its 35 academic programs for potential course reductions or program eliminations.

I’ve become convinced that, at publics, the goal is to dismantle the university and reconstitute as a fancy trade school in the health sciences, computing, engineering of various sorts. It’s not about $$ but what the state government wants to spend $$ on. It’s horrific.

Even with that goal, it’ll be hard to do if you get rid of chemistry, physics, math…. who wants to go to a school where health/programming/engineering/business is all that’s left? (Who wants to hire the engineers that took no humanities coursework?) (And who wants to only teach GER math forever?)

All great questions….

I was briefly premed as an undergrad and there is literally no way to fulfill premed reqs without math, chemistry or physics departments. Organic chem is the traditional premed weeder course. Ditto computing and engineering and math, if not physics.

They want to convert public schools into business schools, which is rich because undergrad business degrees are probably the highest social signal-to-professional knowledge ratios of any degree out there

Fort Tryon Advisors is a financial services firm -- they know NOTHING about academia. Their focus is maximizing revenues for clients: that's it.

maximizing revenues *in the short term. They couldn't care less about more than a year or two ahead.

I keep thinking about John Oliver's segment on Red Lobster the other day, which focuses our attention on the fact that economic decision makers today seem capable of only one thing, which is to find things of real value and liquidate them for cash.

One thing I loved about my University's recent financial statement was "we lose about £3k/year on each undergrad but we're an educational charity, that's literally what we're here for."

Without teaching or research, American universities are basically just very expensive sports clubs. They seem to have forgotten this.

Universities are harmed when they're run like corporations.

Universities have been dying the death of a thousand cuts ever since the first administrator discovered a spreadsheet and thought, “This could be a good way to run things.”

No doubt Biology is a strong producer of cash, but all those profit generating pre-meds will vanish when they realize some janky adjunct is gonna be teaching them Organic Chemistry for the MCAT after the Chem department is fired.

They may not “care” but they do care about that 515 on the MCAT.

Premeds don't care as long as they get an A. Or at least pass.

Agreed. This is awful.

What’s even left?

Exactly.

Only 4 programs are currently slated for cuts. I wish it were none, and I could write a whole book about that. But anyway, I wanted to update this thread. www.bpr.org/bpr-news/202...

UNCA proposes to cut 4 degree programs amid major slide in enrollment, budget deficitwww.bpr.org Ancient Mediterranean Studies, two language concentrations, religious studies, drama and philosophy degree programs would be cut.

Talk about Tryon it on.

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