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Four graduate programs at UNC-Chapel Hill are on pause and under consideration to be discontinued.
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That’s the outcome of a review of each of the university’s 275 degree programs — a project that provost Magnus Egerstedt inherited from past leadership.
The review resulted in 28 programs flagged for having a small number of degree completions or a substantive decline in degrees awarded. Of those, four graduate degrees might not make the cut for continued investment, Egerstedt said at a UNC Board of Trustees committee meeting Wednesday. Those are:
“We wanted this to be rational, data-driven, and fully transparent. We’re not trying to hide anything,” Egerstedt said. “…. I have been asked, perhaps with a hint of surprise, that this is actually kind of a small number, given that we looked at 275 programs. There is a reason for that.
“We are actually in a rather unusual situation as a university. We’re growing our enrollment. There are more students on campus, which means a lot of our degrees are growing.”
Five other small programs will undergo adjustments rather than be discontinued: a bachelor’s in Latin American Studies; a bachelor’s in African, African American, and Diaspora Studies; a bachelor’s in Anthropology; a master’s in Clinical Laboratory Sciences; and a doctorate in Information and Library Science.
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But trustee Marty Kotis, a commercial real estate investor and developer, expressed some dissatisfaction with the program review, lamenting the apparent absence of financial concerns.
“What stands out to me in this presentation is the lack of a single dollar sign,” Kotis said. “… We’ve got to do a better job of considering the dollars involved. That’s our responsibility on the board, and one of the challenges when we get into this idea of shared governance. If people aren’t considering the dollars before it gets to us, [it’s] rough.”
That’s a gripe Kotis has aired before in discussions about awarding tenure.
In addition to degrees with “extremely low demand,” Kotis believes the university should look into adjusting or discontinuing degrees with high cost-per-degree-conferred and low student earning outcomes after graduation.
Though Egerstedt called Kotis’ argument “spot on,” he also gently countered, saying he “never thought of this process as a money-savings exercise,” but rather a “reinvestment” in fields students are most interested in studying.
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