Miami University [in Oxford, Ohio] considers cutting 18 majors in the face of low enrollment

Salamendacious@lemmy.world to News@lemmy.world – 63 points – Miami University considers cutting 18 majors in the face of low enrollment
fox19.com

List of majors being cut or consolidated at Miami University:

  • American Studies.
  • Art History.
  • Classical Studies.
  • Critical Race and Ethnic Studies.
  • French.
  • French Education.
  • German.
  • German Education.
  • Health Communication.
  • Health Information Technology.
  • Italian Studies.
  • Latin American Studies.
  • Latin Education.
  • Religion.
  • Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies.
  • Spanish Education.
  • Social Justice Studies.
  • Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
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I was expecting to see a lot of obscure or very niche majors, but French, German, Art History, and Religion are pretty well known majors.

Yeah those really surprised me. I took German as my foreign language requirement and it stung a tiny bit to see it might be getting the axe. I assume there will still be German language classes just not majors.

Yeah, it said both cutting and consolidating. They will probably create a "Foreign Language" major with a minor in German/French/etc. They will probably do the same with "Foreign Language Education" with a minor in a specific language.

Sure, but majoring in art history at Duke University is the classic example of a major problem with education.

That person will never be able to repay the loan and neither should even an extremely government subsidized education program support more than a handful of people in that field.

Most of these are "liberal arts" in the extremely classical, Greek sense: they are for people who will never need to work for a living.

It's sad that we can't have this, but what does one do with an art history degree? There's a few jobs, but not that many, and they certainly don't pay for tuition at Duke University.

Please point to anywhere that I said anything about the usefulness of any of these majors or about their ability to pay off their loans or even whether the majors should be kept at this university.

You're arguing with someone about something you created in your head.

Well known doesn't necessarily make them popular or a wise investment on the students part.

I never said either of those things or advocated for keeping them. I only said they aren't some weird, obscure majors.

This list reads like "things liberals like"

The Dept of Ed has said that college enrollment has dropped over the last decade but is expected to go up. Maybe those majors will be reinstated if that plays out. The expected increase is still below 2010 numbers though.

They should have cut school administrators instead.

There needs to be a lot of serious reform when it comes to university admin. The amount of money spent on redundant administration positions is ridiculous. And then all those positions get their own secretary to boot.

They are cutting some truly useful majors here. Women's, critical race, and social justice studies are all fantastic foundations for social work and HR. HIT and health communications are very in demand and are only going to increase as our population ages. Really though, none of these are really truly useless. I'm in medicine and the best doctors and nurses are those that have non traditional backgrounds, those that did social sciences in undergrad on top of their prereqs all seem to have an easier time with the critical thinking required by the job. Florida is really intentionally destroying an entire generation's future.

I'd love to see the course list for a 4 year degree in social justice

Here's the course list.

Looks like it's basically sociology with several courses on justice in different contexts.

It'd probably be a good degree for HR.

It'd be even better for a social justice or similar nonprofit.

But really, for non-technical fields, it doesn't matter what your degree is in, as long as you have one to get past the requirement.

Here's a link to a catalog of universities that offer social justice BAs & MAs and direct links to the majors on the university's website.