Cuts against humanities: Pitt axes, suspends graduate programs

Ring the bells and arrange a funeral — Pitt’s graduate religious studies program is dead. Meanwhile, two other graduate programs are awaiting their sentence on death row. 

The three programs are not resting peacefully, though, and University faculty and administrators are still exchanging final words.

On Jan. 30, Provost Patricia Beeson accepted proposals to eliminate the religious studies program and continue the suspension of admissions to Pitt’s graduate programs for German and classics. The Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences suspended admissions to the three programs in April 2012. 

The move stems from a dismal show of state funding for the University, which according to Beeson’s public statement is at its lowest since the University became state-related in 1967. 

In her Jan. 30 statement, Beeson quoted the Dietrich School’s strategic planning document dated March 30, 2012, which said “neither an across the board budget reallocation by department, nor an across the board reallocation by mission, could be implemented without damage to our programs.” She added that the Dietrich School prioritized programs that have “the best opportunity to have a major national or international impact.”

Beeson said the Dietrich School, along with the Graduate Council and Arts and Sciences Council, evaluated the programs based upon quality, impact and cost.

“As good stewards of the resources entrusted to us, we are responsible for continuously evaluating the efficiency and effectiveness of our programs,” Beeson said.

There are currently 11 students — nine in their dissertation stage — in the religious studies graduate program. There are seven students in the German graduate program and four students in the classics graduate program, according to the department’s website, which was last updated on Nov. 26, 2013.

According to Pitt’s chemistry department website, the graduate program has almost 200 graduate students. As stated on their individual websites, the economics department has roughly 50 graduate students and the math department has roughly 80.

The chairs of the three departments — terminated or suspended — aren’t satisfied with the University’s decision or how it was made. 

The chairs claim the University rushed the process, silenced their concerns and left them in the dark with the sudden announcement in April 2012, just days before the final graduate candidates would accept invitations to the University. 

Graduate students must accept offers from programs in April. The chairs said the timing and lack of prior notice intensified their end-of-year duties and turned away fellowship-winning applicants.

Contending sides

A mixture of opinions surround the decision. 

Beverly Ann Gaddy, president of Pitt’s chapter of the American Association of University Professors, said the group believes the University did not meet AAUP’s standards for shared governance between administration and faculty. The AAUP is an organization that promotes academic freedom, shared governance and economic security in higher education.

Gaddy said the process was fraught with a lack of transparency and detailed, public budget information.

Pitt’s chapter of the AAUP released a letter to Provost Beeson on May 10, 2012, that said the initial suspensions of the programs the previous month “were made prematurely and without adequate consultation” with the chairs or the school’s governing committees.

Pitt Vice Chancellor of Communications Ken Service said the University does not have any additional comment beyond what is included in Beeson’s letter when asked by The Pitt News to respond to the chairs’ allegations about the process and statements on how the decision will affect undergraduate education. The University also had no further comment when asked why the University chose these three departments, how the statistics in the planning document were collected, what the total amount of reallocated funding per fiscal year resulting from the eliminations and suspensions would be and where the reallocated money will go.

Others, however, said the University handled the situation appropriately.

The University Senate Budget Policies Committee is a subdivision of the Faculty Senate that reviews whether a school adheres to its bylaws and guidelines regarding planning and budget processes. The committee examined the proposal processes in the case of the German, classics and religious studies programs for any wrongdoings. 

The Senate Budget Policies Committee released a report on Oct. 18, 2013, that supported the Dietrich School’s decision to suspend and terminate the programs. 

The report stated that “the lack of prior consultation was counter to the spirit of the Planning and Budget System,” but the Dietrich School deans did not violate University guidelines because they initially temporarily suspended, not terminated or modified, the programs.

A tumultuous pronunciation

The process began when Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences Dean N. John Cooper called then-department chairs — John Lyon from German, Linda Penkower from religious studies and Edwin Floyd from classics — into his office on April 2, 2012, to alert them of the potential suspension.

Lyon said the chairs did not know why the meeting was called.

“We found out that morning when we were given part of the planning document that said [the University] is reallocating funds to bring up Pitt in the [national] rankings,” Lyon said.

Floyd, who served as interim chair while classics department chair D. Mark Possanza was on sabbatical, said the planning document had a list of “bad features,” or reasons for the decision, such as the programs’ number of students and the time it takes to complete a degree. 

“The general gist of it all was that your students in your graduate programs in classics, German and religious studies do not measure up to other departments,” Floyd said.

When asked for his thoughts on the circumstances and for his response to the chairs’ statements, Cooper said he is not taking media requests and directed questions to the Dietrich School Spokeswoman Carol Mullen. 

Mullen said Cooper supports the provost’s decision, but has no further comment.

Three days after the initial meeting with the chairs, Cooper suspended admissions to the graduate programs on April 5, 2012, for a period of review.

The decision shocked the chairs and raised concerns about what direction the University is taking.

Possanza said faculty and staff come to work to perform exceptionally and feel like they are part of the University but noted that “it’s hard to feel that way when the ground is shifting under your feet.”

“You don’t really feel like you know what is happening or what you can do to do the best job that you can do, because the change is happening so fast and you just are not prepared for it,” he added.

Adam Shear, interim religious studies chair, said he thinks the University obeyed the bylaws, but the situation was rushed and unfair.

“As soon as admissions to these programs were suspended — even though there should have been a presumption of innocence — it shifted over to a presumption of closing the programs,” Shear said.

Timing is everything 

In her letter on Jan. 30, Beeson said the Dietrich School weighed the potential negative impact on the programs resulting from the early announcement (referring to the April 2012 suspension) versus the potential negative impact that prospective students would suffer from a delayed announcement.

“There is never a good time to make such an announcement,” Beeson said.

Lyon said he thinks Beeson was closely involved in the process from the start and didn’t fault Beeson and Cooper for making a difficult decision.

“I would ask them to follow proper procedures,” Lyon said.

According to the the Dietrich School’s bylaws, Dietrich School Council actions take effect 30 days after they are published in the minutes of the Dietrich School Gazette. The Gazette is a bimonthly publication that serves as the formal record of council activity and faculty personnel actions.

According to Lyon, there was no record of the suspensions until Oct. 8, 2013.

“Are you bound to follow your own rules? That’s the question,” Lyon said.

He said he would have requested an external review from the University.

During an external review, members of the specific academic field who are from outside the University critique and evaluate the program.

“What might seem weak or strong at Pitt might not seem weak or strong to the professional world,” Lyon said.

Lyon said he sent a request for an external review to Senior Associate Dean of Arts and Sciences James Knapp in 2011, but never received a response.

All three departments have not received an external review since the ’90s.

In her statement, Provost Beeson referenced the timing of initial suspension as “one of the most discussed procedural issues.”

Beeson said the Dietrich School “weighed in favor of alerting prospective students to the possibility of the program closure.”

“We hadn’t had a chance to talk about this, to plan and to prepare instead,” Possanza said.

Possanza said there would have been practical advantages to an earlier notification.

He said his department could have prepared themselves for the “radical change” in its structure and taken steps to improve performance along the lines indicated by the administration. 

The approval process

The program chairs were asked on May 15, 2012, to submit responses and/or alternative proposals by Oct. 1, 2012. The Dietrich School Graduate Council reviewed the submission on April 12, 2013.

The council approved proposals for indefinite suspension of the classics and German graduate programs and termination of the religious studies graduate program.

The proposals were sent to the Dietrich School Council and the department chairs on April 16, 2013. The classics and German departments responded to the proposals by May 10. The Council postponed its vote by a week to allow council members to reflect on the chairs’ responses.    

The Dietrich School’s Planning and Budget Committee approved the proposals, and Cooper submitted the proposals to Beeson on June 4.

Opportunity for public comment did not come until Sept. 17, 2013, when the University Council on Graduate Studies discussed the proposals during an open meeting at the University Club.

Lyon said the chairs were not invited to attend any of the prior private meetings.

Graduate faculty members received copies of the proposals, the chairs’ written responses and comments from faculty and students opposing the suspensions or termination. For one hour of the meeting, the graduate faculty members could address the council for five minutes each.

“There were again dozens of faculty expressing their concern,” Lyon said. “It was at that level where you first saw votes which were much closer, and that this issue was not as cut and dry as it seemed to appear in the Dietrich councils.”

Impact on undergraduate studies

The elimination of graduate programs means no graduate assistants, and the chairs of the cut programs say the loss will affect undergraduate students.

Lyon said his department has some “really strong” part-time instructors who will take over the courses and recitations taught by graduate students.

But he said that he is concerned about losing the enthusiasm graduate students, who are usually first-time teachers, bring to instruction, which he said is crucial to teaching a language.

“[Graduate students] put in a little extra effort, and [they] take it a lot more personally. They bring in energy and intensity that is hard for me as a long-time professor to replicate,” Lyon said.

Possanza said a “generational factor” also contributes to graduate students’ fervor.

“They’re young. They are excited. They know more about popular culture,” he said. “They are able to build a rapport with the students in a way that can be more difficult for older faculty.”

In her letter, Beeson said she, Cooper and the Dietrich School “will remain committed to undergraduate programs in these departments.”

Shear and the other chairs said the move will negatively affect the caliber of faculty they can attract to teach their undergraduate programs.

“Part of what scholars do is train the next generation of researchers,” Shear said. “We may have trouble filling positions with very high-quality staff who would want to combine the training of undergraduates with engagement in faculty research.”

It also produces a cloud of uncertainty around the programs. 

Possanza said job candidates might wonder what the future holds for the department.

Depending on the University’s plan, class sizes might shrink, and recitation slots could close without graduate students. 

The chairs are worried the reductions will have a ripple affect, negatively impacting the undergraduate and graduate programs that shared interdisciplinary programs with the closed programs.

Leaving the conversation

Religious studies is a hot topic, and Shear and Theodore Pulcini, a graduate of Pitt’s religious studies Ph.D. program, worry that Pitt is inhibiting itself by not sending students into the dialogue.

“The purpose of the university is to provide the society with people who are able to engage in the kind of dialogues necessary for the advancement of our culture,” Pulcini said. 

For Pulcini, the range of faiths that exist in American culture provide substantial reason to study religion.

“People have to be able to take a scholarly stance and look at religion with a kind of objectivity that is necessary for a pluralistic culture like ours,” he said.  

Pulcini, a professor at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pa., obtained his Ph.D. in religious studies from Pitt in 1994 after studying at Harvard and Notre Dame. 

Pulcini said the diversity and history of immigrant religious groups in Western Pennsylvania provided him with an education he could not have obtained at other universities such as Boston University or Harvard graduate school.

He called Pittsburgh a “living library of religious pluralism.”

Pulcini said he taught eight classes while completing his Ph.D. at Pitt and benefited from the University’s collaboration with the Pittsburgh Theological Seminary.

He was offered a job at Dickinson College very shortly after graduation and has worked at the college ever since.

Pulcini said he’s served on a number of budget committees faced with tough decisions during his time at Dickinson College and knows it is a difficult decision.

He added that he does not think the University doesn’t care, but feels the decision was “short-sighted,” a concern that he addressed to Beeson last summer.

Pulcini said he received a brief email response from Beeson’s office.

“[The program closure] will in the long-run undercut the University’s contribution to the public discourse centering on religion, a discourse that appears to be increasing in significance with every passing year,” Pulcini said in the email. 

Looking Ahead

Debate surrounds the University’s process to cut the three programs, but the chairs and Pitt’s chapter of the AAUP are looking ahead and wondering what might be next for the University’s faculty and programs.

According to Pitt’s AAUP report, “It is imperative, especially in times of fiscal austerity and political scrutiny, that faculty remain fully involved in decisions regarding academic programs and not just in a token role.”Beeson addressed this concern in her Jan. 30 letter.

She said the University is committed to making program closure decisions in line with Pitt’s structure of shared governance between the councils and administration.

Shear said it is not simply a matter of losing the fight, picking up their marbles and going home.

Shear, as well as the other chairs, said the conversation can’t end and that they are foreseeing where their lines of study will continue to exist at the University through interdisciplinary programs.

“I’m not predicting doom and gloom. I’m saying this decision should not end the conversation. This decision is a piece of what has to be a much larger conversation,” Shear said.