“The school is part of a growing national divide over whether the role of higher education is to train a future work force, or, as most mission statements indicate, provide a universal education.”
FGCU degree programs named for possible elimination
Bachelor’s: Anthropology, biotechnology, economics, journalism, music performance, theater, philosophy, sociology
Master’s: Computer information systems, criminal justice
Majors get added and removed all of the time. It’s a question of resources.
FGCU awarded 1,864 Bachelor degrees in 2013-2014.
Bachelor’s/# degree’s awarded:
Anthropology=7
biotechnology=3
economics=12
journalism (I’m assuming this is Digital Communication and Media/Multimedia) =5
music performance=5
theater=8
philosophy=6
sociology=17
A total of 63 degree’s or about 3%.
Does it make sense to keep an Anthropology program? or does it make more sense putting the resources (faculty and funding) into the economics program?
In a perfect world, you add as many majors as possible to give your students the largest possible range of choices. However, In reality, you have to place limits. It’s also not uncommon to start a program and then decided a few years later that it’s not growing as expected.
The article hits that reasons other than normal program scrutiny and reallocation of resources is at play (Evil Republicans), but it simply doesn’t make that case. I would expect only a few if any of these majors will be removed, with a few being combined (like Digital Communications into Mass Communication/Media Studies) or made into minors.