FAMU President James Ammons will soon unveil a new long-term budget reduction plan to absorb recent general revenue cuts from the legislature. While the administration has given few clues as to what’s on the chopping block, program eliminations seem inevitable.
Across the State University System, degree concentrations are disappearing:
-UF is shutting down educational psychology, instructional scuba, rehabilitation counseling, and documentary film.
-FIU plans to close its entire religion department and 16 other degree programs that include recreation, sports management, and athletic training.
-FSU might cut anthropology, oceanography, behavioral psychology, molecular biophysics, geological sciences, software engineering, and others.
Across the board: universities are targeting programs that have small enrollment and do not attract major research grants. Many of the cuts are also in colleges of education.
Based on this pattern, FAMU might discontinue some of its specialized education majors. For example, instead of offering biology education, FAMU could require students who want to teach this K-12 field to earn a traditional biology degree.
Here’s a sampling of majors that could be vulnerable to elimination, based on fall 2007 enrollment. They are all undergraduate degree programs that had fewer than five students and were not “pre-majors.”
Instrumental music: 1
Choral music: 2
Theatre education: 4
French: 2
Biology education: 3
Chemistry education: 2
Physics education: 1
Management: 1
Marketing: 1
Agricultural education: 2
Source: FAMU Fact Book, 2007-2008, Office of Institutional Research.
Across the State University System, degree concentrations are disappearing:
-UF is shutting down educational psychology, instructional scuba, rehabilitation counseling, and documentary film.
-FIU plans to close its entire religion department and 16 other degree programs that include recreation, sports management, and athletic training.
-FSU might cut anthropology, oceanography, behavioral psychology, molecular biophysics, geological sciences, software engineering, and others.
Across the board: universities are targeting programs that have small enrollment and do not attract major research grants. Many of the cuts are also in colleges of education.
Based on this pattern, FAMU might discontinue some of its specialized education majors. For example, instead of offering biology education, FAMU could require students who want to teach this K-12 field to earn a traditional biology degree.
Here’s a sampling of majors that could be vulnerable to elimination, based on fall 2007 enrollment. They are all undergraduate degree programs that had fewer than five students and were not “pre-majors.”
Instrumental music: 1
Choral music: 2
Theatre education: 4
French: 2
Biology education: 3
Chemistry education: 2
Physics education: 1
Management: 1
Marketing: 1
Agricultural education: 2
Source: FAMU Fact Book, 2007-2008, Office of Institutional Research.
RN: By the "sample of majors," do you mean "programs" in that specific area or the number of students majoring in that specific area? Surely, there was, for example, more than a single elementary education major during the period listed. I'm a bit confused by the numbers following each listing. Please explain. Thanks. (Maybe I'm sleepy and just need to go to bed. Y' reckon?)
ReplyDeleteMy estimate of the savings resulting from cutting all these programs you list is 52 cents. Hello--FAMU is spending $0 on these programs now. That is why there are almost no majors.
ReplyDelete6/03/2009 3:07 AM,
ReplyDeleteAfter going over the information again, it appears that "Elementary Education" has two listings in the Fact Book. The first, "11101," had only 1 student, as reported.
The second, "12101," had 86 students. There were also 253 "Pre-Elementary Education" students.
So, to avoid confusion, the reference to Elementary Ed has been removed from the original article. Thanks for pointing that out.
maybe it is an issue of funding the programs and marketing the said programs to students correctly. cutting the agriculture education program...what does the "A" in "FAMU" stand for...hello!
ReplyDeleteThe fact book is incorrect. FAMU does not have any majors in management and marketing. FAMU has four degree programs which are BSBA ( Bachelor of Science in Business Administration with concentrations in Marketing and Finance), Bachelor of Science in Accountancy, Professional Master of Business Administration and a Traditional Master of Business Administration.
ReplyDeleteThose two programs (majors in Management and Marketing) have not been approved for SBI. If they were approved, I guarantee you that each of them will not have only one student.
FAMU should cut every program that is inferior to another program in town. FAMU should only keep the programs in which it excels. Ditto for the other institutions of higher learning in town.
ReplyDelete