A deaf studies program at San Diego State University and a fine arts program at Cal Poly Pomona are the latest to face the chopping block as constricted budgets have forced state universities to take a hard look at their program offerings.
The decisions shed light on the way different colleges are approaching the need for cutbacks.
Flickr photo by daveyninChildren practice American Sign Language
At SDSU, low student enrollment was a deciding factor. The American Sign Language/deaf studies program is a tiny operation, with just 24 students enrolled, reports the Daily Aztec.
The eight students who are seniors will be able to take the classes they need to graduate from the program, but the other 16 students were told they needed to find other options.
The Daily Aztec interviewed one of those students, a mother of two deaf sons who uprooted her family to San Diego from Santa Cruz specifically for the deaf studies program.
"It’s affecting my family and it’s affecting the people I want to help," Vicenta Summers told the newspaper. "The reason I want to get into this is because there’s such a scarcity in people who work with deaf people."
Over at Cal Poly Pomona, Provost Marten denBoer recommended the fine arts option of the College of Environmental Design for elimination because the program had serious problems and was the subject of many student complaints, he told the San Gabriel Valley Tribune. The program includes 79 students.
Although university officials told the newspaper that the decision was not driven by the budget crisis, denBoer also began his announcement of the recommendation by saying, "It's no secret that these are unprecedented fiscal times … We must be responsible to the communities we serve and invest the university's diminished resources in programs that meet the highest standards of academic quality."
While the fine arts track is accredited, university officials said a report from accreditors criticized the program, calling the curriculum dated, the student work "average to poor" and the student dissatisfaction "unanimous."
Still, the dissatisfaction was not so unanimous as to preclude anger over the program's possible closure. Fine arts students and faculty rallied in protest last week.
“They cannot do this to us,” student Shelley Bruce told the Poly Post. “This is our education. We have to fight to save our department.”
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