Program prioritization major reason for academic program cuts
Panelists at a Dalhousie Faculty Association (DFA) sponsored talk said that university program prioritization limits academic freedom.
Program prioritization is a system that ranks university programs, including academics, administration and services, such as parking and intramural sports. The lower-ranked programs are indicators to administrators as to what the university could potentially cut in order to save money.
“The result is frequently the same: resource allocation that has little to do with the quality of education and a lot to do with political, administrative or corporate priorities,” DFA president Catrina Brown said at the beginning of the talk.
The Sept. 30 talk, “Whose Priorities? Whose Choices?” featured York University labour historian Craig Heron, University of Saskatchewan English professor Len Findlay and Dalhousie Student Union (DSU) VP (academic and external) Jacqueline Skiptunis.
Robert Dickeson coined the method of program prioritization with his best-selling book, “Prioritizing Academic Programs and Services.” He also runs an academic consulting firm that has been used by many universities in the USA and Canada.
The University of Guelph completed program prioritization last October. Top priorities included science-related teaching and research programs, parking and intramural athletics. Lower priorities included the campus bookstore, as well as language, literature, theatre studies and math programs. Almost no undergraduate programs ranked in the top 20 per cent of the rankings.
Even without Dickeson, universities continue to prioritize programs with other consulting firms or by themselves. Dal has not admitted to participating in program prioritization. Brown introduced Skiptunis as a representative for the student opinion on program prioritization.
Skiptunis said she came to Dal in 2007 to study linguistics, but discovered when she arrived at the school that the program had just been cut that year. Even when she continued with a major in Russian studies, her Russian language and literature professor Shannon Spasova eventually left Dal in 2012 because the university wouldn’t give her a secure position; she was on a limited-term appointment since 2007.
“To find out that […] my university didn’t think that what this woman taught and the people she taught were valuable enough to them to keep the program running and to fund it properly was even more damaging,” Skiptunis said. “The administration doesn’t think students are going to side with professors.” Both Heron and Findlay said in their speeches at the DFA talk that the administration has seized control of the university rather than the professors. Heron said that even Dickeson’s updated bestseller mentions the rising increase in administrative costs in contrast to continual cuts to academic programs.
Findlay, an English professor at the University of Saskatchewan who fought with its faculty association against the program prioritization occurring there, said the university is being governed in a way mirroring the Harper government. In the way that Harper fracks the country for oil and its economic benefits, university administrators frack the faculty to receive corporate funding. York University, where Heron works, participated in a Dickesonian program prioritization exercise. Each faculty had many questions to answer about their programs in 500 words or less.
The questionnaire also asked York faculties to present data, such as student retention rates and employment after graduation rates. But this data was often inaccurately or inadequately portrayed, especially in liberal arts programs.
“Without decent data, how can programs be ranked, other than through slippery subjective judgements?” Heron said.
Skiptunis said she often hears from students that they feel disrespected by the university because it has taken away courses in faculties they decide aren’t that profitable.
“The job of a university historically is not to be market-reactive […] the job of a university is to actually create the market,” she said. “In trying to chase a market and cutting programs and denying students access to courses they desire and they need, they’re actually devaluing our university degree.”
After the program prioritization exercise, Heron said the tension between faculties was apparent throughout the York campus. “An unhealthy spirit of competitiveness emerges,” Heron said. “Throughout the process, faculty associated with particular programs are typically anxious and fearful that their own program is at risk.”
A professor from the School of Health Professions said a university administrator told her to teach the bare minimum so that she could focus more on her research. Dal asks the School of Health Professions to list what professors do so that they can get a pay increase for every year they teach at the school.
“Tenure is coupled to academic freedom,” Findlay said. “To be a fearless tribune, to call things as you see them, and to do so without fear of reprisal. If there is a culture of fear, it is profoundly damaging to the institution and profoundly dismaying to the general public.”
Heron also gave advice in his speech about how to resist the administration’s demands. “No thanks, give us adequate public funding and we’ll produce the high quality teaching and research that you want at a reasonable cost,” he said. “That, we should tell them, is our priority.” Oct. 10 – Oct. 16, 2014 • “In trying to chase a market and cutting programs and denying students access to courses they desire and they need, they’re actually devaluing our university degree.”
After the program prioritization exercise, Heron said the tension between faculties was apparent throughout the York campus. “An unhealthy spirit of competitiveness emerges,” Heron said. “Throughout the process, faculty associated with particular programs are typically anxious and fearful that their own program is at risk.”
A professor from the School of Health Professions said a university administrator told her to teach the bare minimum so that she could focus more on her research. Dal asks the School of Health Professions to list what professors do so that they can get a pay increase for every year they teach at the school.
“Tenure is coupled to academic freedom,” Findlay said. “To be a fearless tribune, to call things as you see them, and to do so without fear of reprisal. If there is a culture of fear, it is profoundly damaging to the institution and profoundly dismaying to the general public.”
Heron also gave advice in his speech about how to resist the administration’s demands.
“No thanks, give us adequate public funding and we’ll produce the high quality teaching and research that you want at a reasonable cost,” he said. “That, we should tell them, is our priority.”
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