After a nearly month-long delay, the college plans to release the findings of a program review from this summer that identified majors that could be cut as part of Columbia’s plan to restructure and reduce expenses.

Interim President and CEO Jerry Tarrer and Provost and Senior Vice President Marcella David will meet with faculty on Wednesday afternoon, Sept. 11, the first in a series of town hall meetings about the programs that could be merged or cut.

David has said that the town halls are meant to include faculty in the conversation and “to talk about the analysis, the basis for the analysis and then talk though the list that was provided.”

For faculty, staff and students, this first meeting should offer clues about which programs are the most vulnerable to being eliminated. 

What it means:

When the college chooses to sunset a major, it would stop accepting students for the following semester. It begins a process called “teaching out” in which students in the program continue their path to graduation while the program’s courses are either reworked for a new curriculum that could be a concentration, minor or even a new major or eliminated. In the past when courses were removed from the catalog, the college made substitutions. 

Students will be able to request substitutions through their academic advisor if a course is removed from the catalog. 

Students in impacted majors would be able to finish their degrees before the programs closed. In the past when Columbia has sunset majors, it stopped accepting new students but continued to support existing students.

The college last sunset programs in 2017. The Education Department was dissolved and the early childhood education program was moved to the Humanities, History and Social Sciences Department in 2017. At the time, there were 31 students in the program. The college stopped accepting new admissions in Fall 2018. The college also eliminated Creative Arts Therapies the same year. 

Several current majors have enrollment even smaller than that, with only 14 majoring in cultural studies, 12 in the relatively new environmental studies major and 28 in photojournalism in Spring 2024, according to the Office of Institutional Effectiveness.

By the numbers:

The college is facing a $17 million deficit, one that has been lowered from $38 million by layoffs, voluntary separation, and sale of property. While $18 million was proposed to come from administrative efficiencies in the advisory report, $21 million was eliminated from the budget during the summer. 

Another $3.8 million was proposed to come from instructional expenses, including the budget of each school and programs.

Columbia currently has 59 majors and 11 concentrations across those majors. The largest three majors, film and television, fashion and animation had 1,983 students collectively as of Fall 2023.

President Tarrer said in an email sent on Monday, Sept. 9, last fall the college had 6,588 students total. This year the population stands at 5,618.

As the Chronicle previously reported, Columbia saw 600 fewer first-year students registering for the fall. Despite seeing a higher retention for rising sophomores and a larger draw of transfer students, Columbia overall saw 150 fewer transfer students as well. 

How we got here:

The Board of Trustees voted in May to approve former President Kwang-Wu Kim’s recommendation of “adverse circumstance,” placing all programs on an “intensive and iterative three-year assessment and planning process to ensure sustained focus and progress toward goals.”

At the time, Kim’s report identified 28 programs across 14 former departments as “programs of concern” based on enrollment trends, complexity and retention and graduation rates. With the restructuring of the former 15 departments into eight schools, every program was put on notice. 

The college hired consultant Kaufman Hall to conduct the program review, which was completed this summer. The analysis was initially presented at a Board of Trustees meeting on Aug 14. 

Faculty had expected to hear the results of the analysis at the All-College Retreat that same week, but Tarrer and David said it would be delayed until after school started for the fall.

According to Tarrer, Kaufman Hall used four factors to identify programs for closure: 

• enrollment trends,
• market share,
• financial contributions margins and
• expense reductions. 

He also said that while those four points are the basis of the analysis, the administration wanted faculty insight into the conversation before presenting the final proposal to the Board of Trustees early next year.

David told faculty at the Aug. 16 meeting that she wanted them to consider what programs the college really wants to offer, how they can be delivered “efficiently and effectively for our students” and “what is the value of a Columbia college education.”  

“What is the special sauce we want to provide?” she asked faculty at the meeting.

What faculty and students are saying: 

Victoria Joynson, senior marketing major, transferred to Columbia last fall and said there have been too many changes.

“With everything that’s happening, Columbia is just losing its credibility as a school and as a good institution for the arts,” she said. “When I graduate and start looking for jobs, they’re going to see I graduated from Columbia and they’re going to be like, ‘oh you went there?’”

Kathryn Bergquist, a part-time instructor in the School of Communication and Culture, said that she won’t be able to come to the town hall and provide her input on the list of programs recommended for cuts, but she realizes “a big reset is probably necessary.” She is curious to see what the administration is proposing.

“The school clearly has a responsibility to students who it recruited to pursue specific majors to follow through with that promise,” Bergquist said. “I hope that the school will continue to be a place where students can get a wonderfully diverse education.”

Cierra Gonzales, a senior musical theatre major, said the transition over the next few years will be “rough.” While she doesn’t expect to be impacted because her major is “in its own little world,” other students may be.

“I feel like that’s what Columbia has advertised itself, is having all of these options and amazing majors that you don’t really find at other places and that is what I feel like a lot of people come here for,” Gonzales said. “There’s a whole world of art and that’s why some people come here to find those specific, more niche groups.”

What’s next:

Town halls with faculty will continue to take place throughout the Fall 2024 semester and a final proposal is expected to the Board of Trustees in January or February detailing which programs, or majors, are to close and also what new ones could be created.

Copy edited by Trinity Balboa

Resumen en Español:

El 11 de septiembre, se lanzará los resultados de una análisis del programa de Columbia que se realizó este verano pasado. Los resultados identifican cuáles programas están en riesgo de ser cortados, para ayudar al déficit financiero de $17 millones, reducido de $38 millones por otras cortas de gastos. Si se cortan algunos programas de la escuela, se implementará un sistema que permite que los estudiantes actuales se gradúen con el mismo título, pero que no admiten estudiantes nuevos en el programa. La facultad se reunirá con Presidente y Director Ejecutivo Jerry Taller y Preboste y Vicepresidente Senior Marcella David el 11 de Septiembre, y varias veces por el semestre para finalizar la lista de programas cortados o nuevos que estará disponible en enero o febrero.

Resumen en Español por Sofía Oyarzún