Nearly 50 majors at UA found to produce too few degrees

University of Arizona deans have been given a report on majors in their colleges that run the risk of elimination due to failing to meet the Arizona Board of Regents guidelines for "productive" programs in terms of degrees produced.

In the worst case scenario - eliminating every major that doesn't meet the requirement - UA students would see about 20 fewer undergraduate degrees and about 20 fewer graduate degrees offered next fall.

That's unlikely to happen, though, since deans are being given the opportunity to explain why a particular major might be underproducing.

The report examines the number of undergraduate, professional and graduate degrees granted by major and college for the past three years.

It is the latest in a series of steps in UA's Transformation Plan, which President Robert N. Shelton announced last fall. Shelton said at that time the university needed to become more efficient to strengthen its academic endeavors.

Some majors the report highlighted as low-degree producing are crop production, Judaic studies, genetic counseling and applied and industrial physics.

UA leadership wants to hear from deans by March about solutions, said Gail Burd, vice provost for academic affairs.

"Deans are working with the department heads to figure out how to deal with these under-producing programs," Burd said. "Maybe they want to beef up recruiting, maybe they want to close the program, maybe merge some programs."

Or maybe, as is the case in two degrees listed as under-producing in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, they'll explain that the data is wrong.

"The Agriculture Resource and Economics major no longer exists," said David Cox, associate dean for academic programs in the college, pointing out a mistake in the data.

Agricultural and Resource Economics was combined with Agricultural Economics and Management to produce an Agribusiness Economics and Management major in a prior reorganization, Cox said.

Still, he said, "There's no doubt, we're going to have to look at some of these where enrollments are small and combine majors. ... That's a reality of this budget situation."

UA received a $20 million budget cut from the state legislature last July and university officials learned Thursday that legislative leadership have suggested midyear cuts to UA of $103 million, with an even larger hit in fiscal year 2010, which begins July 1.

Another problem with the data, said Fabian Alfie, associate professor of Italian, is that double majors appear to be counted against departments.

The report shows Italian as having only 18.5 undergraduate degrees awarded over the past three years, but Alfie said the department has actually awarded 25 or 26 depending on if the three-year period is counted by the academic or calendar year.

"I understand they need to cut … and it is patently unfair to dock a program because a student is a double major," Alfie said, adding that an academic policy manual on the provost's Web site states that double majors should be considered graduates of each major.

Burd said those issues of how to count the majors would be resolved by March.

"This is why we are depending on the deans and faculty to explain the nuances of individual cases," she said.

Cost-savings would be realized in closing some of the majors through "redeploying" tenured faculty from that closed major to high-enrollment areas, reducing or eliminating the need for adjunct instructors, Burd said.

"We would redeploy them but in ways appropriate to their expertise," she said. "We wouldn't take an English professor and make him teach math."

UA employed nearly 400 adjunct instructors last fall, according to salary data obtained by the Tucson Citizen.

Burd said UA will work to negate the effect of closed majors on students.

"If they are freshman, could they be moved to another degree program that would work for them? Are they close enough to graduating that maybe we would close it for new majors but keep it open for those in it to graduate?" she asked.

"We would like to close these (under-producing) majors unless we get a justification as to why they shouldn't be closed from the deans," she said.

Cox said the budget crunch "will cause us to make some curriculum changes ... and we may not have the wide array of majors available for students. But there are ways to combine some of these majors that have common course work and still meet needs of students."