Resolution Concerning the Deactivation of Academic Programs
for Submission to Faculty Senate
Whereas Section 2.2.2 of the Faculty By-Laws of the University stipulates that the Faculty “shall
review and provide formal consultation on, prior to adoption, all proposals regarding the
creation, renaming, major re-organization, or dissolution of academic units and programs”;
Whereas Section 2.5 of the Faculty By-Laws of the University (“Faculty Advisory Groups
Outside of Governance Bodies”) stipulates that “such groups do not represent the Faculty as
a whole and advice from such groups does not replace approval by or formal consultation
with the Faculty” and that “for such groups to be considered part of the formal consultative
process, a majority of the faculty members must either be appointed by, or their
recommended appointment approved by, the Senate Governance Council, as specified in
Article 2, Section 5.5, and specific faculty members must be designated to regularly report to
the Senate”;
Whereas the Budget Advisory and Strategic Planning Groups clearly fall under Section 2.5 of the
By-Laws as “Advisory Groups Outside of Governance Bodies;”
Whereas the rules of formal consultation with faculty were not followed in the process that
resulted in the program deactivations;
Whereas the three Budget Advisory Groups included no representatives from the 4 largest
humanities departments: English, History, LLC, and Philosophy;
Whereas 3 of the 5 deactivated programs and 11 of the 14 tenured faculty affected by the
deactivations are housed within LLC;
Whereas the program deactivations have been publicly justified using the criterion of
“comparatively lower enrollments”;
Whereas comparative data provided by the Office of Institutional Research identify 11 other
programs in the College of Arts and Sciences with a smaller total number of majors and/or
faculty-to-major ratios lower than those in the deactivated programs;
Whereas the programs targeted for deactivation are essential to the core educational mission of
the university at both the undergraduate and graduate levels, as attested by faculty from
across the university at the October 18, 2010 Senate meeting;
Whereas institutions such as the University of California at Berkeley and Hofstra University
have met budgetary shortfalls by deactivating non-academic units such as Athletics, rather
than deactivating academic degree programs;
Be it resolved that the Senate opposes the deactivation of the Classics, French, Italian, Russian,
and Theatre programs;
Be it resolved that the Senate directs the President to reverse the deactivation order and launch a
new consultation process adhering to the Faculty By-Laws of the University;
Be it resolved that the Senate directs the President to meet budget shortfalls by downsizing or
eliminating non-academic units such as Athletics prior to deactivating academic programs.
