Editor’s Note: This is the fifth 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 College of Humanities and Social Sciences plans to challenge the six master’s programs and one doctoral program that were labeled “low completers” by the Board of Regents.
“We consider these very important programs,” said Gaines Foster, the college’s dean.
The programs are among the 34 at the University that appeared on a statewide list compiled by the Regents, which oversees the state’s higher education system.
To escape the low-completer label, master’s programs must routinely produce five or more graduates a year. Doctoral programs must graduate two annually.
Master’s programs up for review in the college include communication studies, French, Hispanic studies, philosophy, sociology and geography.
“It’s devastating news to hear that these programs are being reviewed,” Foster said.
Universities must submit proposals to the Regents by Feb. 28 detailing either how the programs can be consolidated or defending why they should remain funded.
The review comes as continued budget cuts drive state policymakers, like Gov. Bobby Jindal and the Regents, to seek out and eliminate inefficiencies in the state’s higher education system.
But administrators and faculty say this review doesn’t necessarily measure the programs’ cost effectiveness fairly.
“There’s no way to really pull out what we spend on each program,” Foster says. “There’s a lot of faculty overlap, and our faculty provide other services outside of these individual programs.”
Several of the programs in question are interdisciplinary, drawing upon faculty from several departments, and those programs don’t have serious funding draws.
Foster said the number of master’s programs on the list is a sign of the college’s focus on doctoral programs.
“We’ve made a conscious effort to focus on Ph.D.’s,” he said. “Most of our Ph.D. programs are meeting their needs.”
The doctoral degree in comparative literature was challenged during the last Board of Regents review, but Foster said the college got an extension for the program.
“It’s a very strange series of events to see that on the list,” he said.
Foster said many of the master’s programs are “stepping stones” to Ph.D. programs.
“A lot of students are getting their master’s on a way to a Ph.D.,” he said. “These are programs that actually support their Ph.D. programs.”
Wesley Shrum, sociology section head, said that’s exactly the problem with his department’s master’s program.
“There was a review a while back, and it was decided that we needed to focus our efforts on our Ph.D. program,” he said. “You may be seeing some results from that.”
Shrum said the master’s program recently dropped below five graduates, but it already has five graduates lined up for this year and the next.
“The Regents are doing a good job with this study,” he said. “They just need to be judicious about how they apply what they find.”
It appears most of the programs on the Regents’ list saw temporary drops in master’s students applying.
The Hispanic Studies program, for example, graduated only three students in 2009 and four students in 2010, said department head Christian Fernandez. But the program already has five students set to graduate in May.
Fernandez says graduate programs provide additional economic benefit to the University because those students teach undergraduate classes.
 
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Contact Matthew Albright at [email protected]