Provincially mandated program reviews are ‘problematic,’ says Dal faculty

Faculty at Dalhousie University are concerned about the potential impacts of upcoming provincially-mandated academic program reviews.

Under a 2025 bilateral agreement with the provincial government, Dalhousie and other Nova Scotian universities are required to review their academic programs and categorize them into four groups for potential changes, identifying whether they should remain unchanged, have their curriculum updated, be improved to boost post-graduate outcomes or be potentially eliminated.

Letitia Meynell, a gender and women’s studies and philosophy professor at Dalhousie, is concerned about the impact of program reviews on higher education in the province.

“It seems like [Premier Tim] Houston’s conservative government is utterly uninterested in creating people who can think about the future in creative and challenging ways,” said Meynell. “They just want drones for the workforce, and that’s no way to build a society.” 

Dalhousie is expected to complete reviews of its more than 300 programs by September and present a final draft to Nova Scotia’s Department of Advanced Education by Oct. 15. 

Under the bilateral agreement, the university will receive more than $6.2 million from the province towards its 2026-27 operating budget after conducting the reviews.

The program reviews are designed to ensure academic programs remain relevant, sustainable and aligned with labour market needs and student demand, Chloee Sampson, a spokesperson for Nova Scotia’s Department of Advanced Education, said in a statement to the Dalhousie Gazette. 

The process will include analyzing the occupations students enter after graduating and determining the cost-effectiveness of each program. 

“Our priority remains ensuring students continue to have access to high-quality academic programming while maintaining the long-term sustainability of our post-secondary institutions,” said Sampson.

The provincial government has contracted the Maritime Provinces Higher Education Commission to assist with the review, which then hired Huron Consulting Group, an American firm with a history of recommending deep cuts to universities, to help determine the cost-effectiveness of programs. 

Faculty concerned about possible program changes

Some Dalhousie humanities professors are concerned about how the reviews could impact their programs and the broader university.

Emily Varto, a classics professor at Dalhousie, says the program review process could be “problematic” for arts programs. 

“When these labour market alignments are assigned, they’re very limited in their imagination,” said Varto. 

Meynell says the skills she gained from her education can apply to many careers, but may not appear in a labour market assessment. 

“You’re going to be a better physician, or nurse, or lawyer, or leader of any organization whatsoever or teacher,” she said. “You’re going to be better at all those things if you understand the ways in which gender structures our society.”

Noreen Kamal, an industrial engineering professor and co-founder of CoCoGov, a Dal faculty-led initiative aimed at improving transparency in university decision-making, said student voices need to be more involved in the review process. 

“Why are the students not having a say in these program reviews?” she says. “There would be no university without students.” 

David Westwood, president of the Dalhousie Faculty Association, says he understands that students will gravitate toward areas of education with a higher likelihood of transitioning into employment. However, he’s worried this could become the only factor in determining the success of programs in external reviews.  

“If we close every program that doesn’t feed into the labour market, universities are going to be a very different place than they are today.”