Editor’s note: This is the fourth in a series of stories looking at 34 University programs under scrutiny. The Board of Regents, the body that oversees the state’s higher education system, labeled those programs “under-performing” Jan. 26.
The department of Women’s and Gender Studies has opted to consolidate the Bachelor of Arts degree program to a concentration after a roller-coaster ride of evaluations by the Board of Regents.
WGS Director Michelle Massé said the department decided to consolidate the program by converting the current Bachelor of Arts to a concentration in the liberal arts program under the College of Humanities and Social Sciences. Massé said she doesn’t know yet when the change will occur.
The decision to consolidate came after the Regents began evaluating a list of “low-completer” programs around the state in January. WGS was one of 34 University programs the Regents identified as having low graduation and enrollment rates.
According to Massé, WGS has 35 students currently enrolled in the major and minor programs, and it has graduated 13 students since 2007.
“This has been our fifth low-completer report in the last two years,” Massé said. “It’s hard for me to even total the number of faculty hours that have been spent on this that may have been better spent recruiting students and program initiatives in the classroom.”
The WGS program was terminated after its evaluation in January 2010, but the Regents reinstated it in August, giving it an extension of three years.
But the degree tract reappeared on the list of low-completer programs in January, despite the elongation.
“It’s been a strange series of events,” said Gaines Foster, dean of Humanities and Social Sciences. “We were surprised to see it on the list.”
Massé agreed, saying the process has been a game of “peek-a-boo.”
“Every time the Board says we are at risk, we try to recruit,” she said. “But when students hear the program is at risk, we lose them. The students ask, ‘Why would I want to spend that much time and energy in a program that’s clearly not going to survive the next six months?'”
Massé said the situation is emotional and frustrating for a number of reasons.
“When we become a concentration, the same courses are taught, the same requirements will be there, and the same faculty will teach — there’s not a nickel that will be saved,” she explained. “It’s a paper change. It’s something that looks like something decisive has been done — nothing has.”
Massé said students currently enrolled in the degree program will be able to graduate with the degree, but there is a risk of their degree being diminished. Students who planned to major in WGS in the future will have to follow the concentration.
One of these students is Mary-Devon Dupuy, a political science senior with a minor in WGS.
“I’m a minor who is planning on becoming a major, so this would affect me a great deal if it happened before I was able to declare WGS as my second major,” Dupuy said in an e-mail. “The elimination will affect currently enrolled majors by further decreasing campus awareness for women’s issues and funding for causes which benefit women.”
Massé said the change is detrimental to the status of the University and to the state.
“We were the 50th flagship university to have a WGS program. We are among the first to start cutting significant portions of it,” she explained. “It takes 10 minutes to cut a program, but it takes 10 years to restore a reputation.”
Robin Toler, WGS junior, said Louisiana needs the program.
“I am embarrassed to tell this to my friends who live in Seattle, Boston and Ontario that Louisiana State University is cutting their WGS program,” Toler said in an e-mail.
But all argued the bigger issue at hand is the quality of education, not the number of graduates.
“You know, we’re not McDonald’s,” Massé said. “The point is not how many units we get through. It’s how well our students are prepared to do all the things we talk about for the mission of LSU.”
 
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Contact Sydni Dunn at [email protected]