Huckleberries Online

Columnist: Some Programs Should Go

Posted by DFO

Feb. 10, 2009 5:40 p.m. • 3 comments

There has been a lot of recent outrage on campus over the Program Prioritization Process. The University of Idaho is contemplating cutting up to 41 different degree programs, including the physics bachelor’s degree. Anyone who has been on campus in the past several weeks knows this hasn’t gone over well with students and faculty. While supporters of physics write letters to the paper, circulate petitions and hold up signs at games, no one has asked an important question. If not physics, what program should get the axe? In an ideal world, the university would have all the money it needed for education and research, but this isn’t an ideal world. State and local governments across the country are cutting back spending to survive the recession. This, sadly, includes UI/Jeffrey Reznicek, UI Argonaut. More here.

Question: Is the University of Idaho approaching budget cuts realistically by proposing that less popular programs be cut?

Three comments on this post so far. Add yours!

Escapee on February 10 at 7:25 p.m.
It’s all about the money. The U of I, as well as other such institutions are gonna keep the programs which are the most cost-efficient. Soon, professors in less popular fields will lose their jobs. Heck, soon, schools may just close down in favor of online operations such as the University Of Phoenix, whose e-mails I’ve gotten waay too many of. Soon, no one will go anywhere to do anything. We’ll all be esconced in our dwellings, the kids going to school and the parents working, and it’ll all be done from laptop computers. The year 2525 isn’t all that far away…
moscow_minidoka on February 11 at 7:14 a.m.
“…this isn’t an ideal world. State and local governments across the country are cutting back spending to survive the recession. This, sadly, includes UI/Jeffrey Reznicek, UI Argonaut.

The problem that Jeff is overlooking - the elephant in the room - is that, in Idaho, the recession is just another excuse to gut state agencies. The UI was underfunded by the state of Idaho BEFORE the recession hit - that’s the problem. The UI is not the only institute of higher education that has been poorly served by its state overseers, by the way.

The reason that people in physics are up in arms is because there are actual STUDENTS in those programs. The programs no one is fussing about include things like the Masters in Teaching History, which has had something like only one student in the past decade. Everyone agrees that those under- (or non-) utilized programs should go - but not necessarily programs like psychics.

Somehow, there has been this creeping notion that a university should be run like a business, and should make money, and should serve its “customers.” That is as wrongheaded as deciding the Catholic Church should be a business. It’s apples and oranges. If a university must be a business, a good 3/4 of programs should be cut because they are based on education for betterment or enlightenment, not for making more money once you leave college.

The UI will survive, but there is a prevailing feeling that the state is attempting to turn our institutes of higher learning into votec schools.

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About this blog

D.F. Oliveria is a columnist and blogger for The Spokesman-Review. Huckleberries Online was judged the best 2008 Idaho newspaper blog by the Idaho Press Club. And the best 2007 news blog in the Pacific Northwest by the Society for Professional Journalist. Print Huckleberries is a past winner of the Herb Caen Memorial Column contest by the National Association of Newspaper Columnists. The Readership Institute of Northwestern University cited this blog as a good example of online community journalism.