Includes updates on 3/24
Radford University is off to an interesting week. 
Toward the end of last week and over the weekend, two groups were started to fight proposed changes by the RU administration. Some of those changes regarding academic programs were up for review on Monday. Thursday at 3:30 p.m. the long-awaited and twice-canceled open forum on the budget is supposed to take place. That same day at 4 p.m. a recreation facilities town hall meeting is sceduled to respond to students upset that the Dedmon Center fitness facilities are now reserved for official student athletes only. And on Friday, more academic programs will be under review.
As for Monday’s academic programs review, the process consisted of an academic program review board discussing the merits of numerous programs on Monday, such as the Appalachian Studies Minor, Peace Studies Minor, Women’s Studies Minor, International Studies Minor, Master of Music Degree, and the Foods & Nutrition Degree among others. Each area was allocated up to 20 minutes of time for the committee to discuss the program although the torrid pace saw most area’s receiving less than 20 minutes. After committee members discussed the program, a vote was taken by the committee as to the program’s future.
Of the programs voted on by the committee on Monday, only one was voted overwhelmingly to be discontinued, and that was the Certificate in Appalachian Studies. Committee members could vote to continue the program as is, discontinue the program, restructure the program and continue to admit majors while restructuring, or restructure the program and discontinue admission of majors until restructuring is complete. Some programs, such as the Appalachian Studies Minor, saw almost an equal number of votes to discontinue, continue as is, and restructure while continuing to admit majors. The Certificate in Educational Leadership is the only program that received a unanimous vote to continue.
“Both my minor and graduate certificate (Appalachian Studies Certificate Program) is on the chopping block,” RU alumnus Shai Cullop said. She added that the programs were a vital part of the university because of the school location in Appalachia.
In an e-mail sent to faculty Monday night from Faculty Senate President Stephen Owen, he said, “My overall assessment of the meeting is that the discussions were collegial and most programs received support, particularly in terms of very positive statements from the deans. Because the voting was conducted by secret ballot, I cannot comment on why some programs received a stray vote here or there for restructuring
or discontinuance.”
University Relations spokesperson Michael Hemphill said in a written statement, “Once the program review committee completes its work, it will present its recommendations to Provost [Wil] Stanton and Faculty Senate. The Faculty Senate will then review and comment on the committee’s recommendations. Provost Stanton will then take into consideration both the committee’s work and Faculty Senate’s comments and make a recommendation to President Kyle and the Board of Visitors.”
For RU junior Rebekah Lewis, her program was under consideration as well.
“I am very interested in pursuing a Family Nurse Practitioner degree after I graduate from the RU School of Nursing,” Lewis said. “This program was discussed today, but unfortunately, they did not stick to their schedule, so when I came anticipating to hear about that program, I found that they had already covered it and moved on to other subjects. I am glad that students were able to attend the program; however, I felt that it was extremely rude that the committee did not stick to its schedule so that those of us who expected to be able to hear about our particular program of interest could easily miss it since we didn’t know they were ahead of schedule.”
RU sophomore Catherine Furry was also upset about the committee schedule.
“I can’t believe they voted by a large majority to discuss very important majors today that were scheduled to be discussed on Friday and subsequently didn’t publicize the time change, because I know students who wanted to attend on Friday,” Furry said. “I really think there’s a growing disconnect between Radford’s administration and the students.”
Friday’s academic program review will include programs such as the Mathematics Degree, Geology Degree, Physics Degree, Geography Degree, Sociology Degree, and Philosophy & Religion Degree among others. In all, 29 programs are being reviewed with the possibility of terminating the program(s) a possibility. The consideration of so many changes has prompted the creation of a student group called Students Advocating Liberal Arts (SALA).
Stephen Schmidt, one of the co-founders of the group said that he and co-founder Emily Walker were tired of sitting around complaining about what the university is doing. Walker and Schmidt decided to rally fellow students and talking about the issues simply wasn’t enough. The two started a Facebook group and support has snowballed since, Schmidt said. As of late Monday night, the group had about 450 members in just a few days of existence.
“The primary agenda of SALA is to unite the students and educate them about the program reforms,”Schmidt explained. “Since we as a student body are what comprises the university, we deserve full insight on the administration’s decisions about our futures. We are attempting to unify the student body, faculty and staff and make everyone aware of the issues at hand.”
Schmidt and Walker, along with a handful of other students, attended Monday’s academic program review committee meeting, but only committee members were allowed to speak. A Student Government Association member was supposed to be present on the committee but did not attend. “I just found out that [the SGA representative] was informed of his position Sunday night by the [committee] and he was severely uninformed on the matters at hand,” Schmidt said. “This is too conspicuous that the [committee] had someone appointed the night before the meeting to represent the students.”
Group co-founder Walker said that SALA’s purpose is to protect Radford’s integrity. “I want an administration that works with and for its students and faculty,” she said. “I want my major, Religious Studies, to mean something once I graduate. In 5 or 10 years, I want Radford to be a university, not a vocational school, and if SALA can do that, I will be immensely impressed with our students.
Just a couple days after the SALA group started, another group sprang up called Demand Excellence At Radford (DEAR). Andrew Rose Gregory, who grew up in Radford and attended Radford University, is the de facto leader of the group that he hopes will include alumni, faculty, staff, parents of students, community members and, by joining forces with SALA, the students themselves.
Gregory wants to organize in a manner that will bring attention to the proposed academic changes. Like the members of SALA, Gregory is a strong component of the liberal arts and sees the elimination of interdisciplinary studies and degrees such as math, religion & philosophy, and sociology as unacceptable.
“This is an important cause,” Gregory said. “So many people don’t know what’s going on. We plan to let people know.”
Leaders of both groups said they want to have good representation at Thursday’s open forum on the budget, but the concern arises that an overlap in time exists with the meeting for students to discuss their concerns about the Dedmon Center no longer being opened as a fitness center for all students. This will cause students with concerns about each to have to choose which meeting they will attend.
“Why would the administration schedule them both at the same time?” Gregory asked sarcastically.
Tim W. Jackson is Editor of the New River Voice. Additional reporting was provided by Brian Seay, an intern for the New River Voice.
9 responses so far ↓
1 Cynthia // Mar 24, 2009 at 9:05 am
I attended the meeting start to finish. It was so admirabley “fast-track” that the Bush administration would have been proud to call the team their own. Hugely disapointing was Dr. Debra Templeton, Assistant Vice Provost & Director, Institutional Research, Planning, and Assessment, who brought incorrect information to the table. She stated that the Graduate Certificate of Appalachian Studies had no graduates awarded in 2007 and 2008. In fact, two recipients were sitting directly in front of her. Such poor information gathering may have doomed other programs besides the graduate certificate. The rate of nothing-thoughtful-to-say-here- was so fast that only a few of the very devoted Appalachian Studies folks were in the room when the Certificate came up for review. We were texting as fast as we could to get our people to the conference room. Amazingly, only the Dean of the College of Visual and Performing Arts, Dr. Joseph Scartelli, pointed out to the committee that RU is in Appalachia, infering that it is meaningful to serve the community. Dr. Scartelli seemed the most thoughtful and well-intentioned of the Deans present.
2 mdr // Mar 24, 2009 at 9:56 am
I am troubled by this data issue considering no data has been given regarding the 4 interdisciplinary programs; in the “Program Review Decision Matrix” (http://senate.asp.radford.edu/current/reports/assessment/090226_Program%20Review%20Decision%20Matrix.pdf)
there are no numbers for APST, INST, PEAC or WMST. How were these decisions made? What is the bar that these programs are supposed to reach? And how do we place a simple dollar value on programs that do so much more than simply churn out graduates? While Theatre & Dance were being discussed, I kept wondering if anybody had thought about what our campus would look like without any of the wonderful performances that I have seen here over the years. The same can be said for Appalachian Studies, the number of minors may be small but the program’s presence on campus is enormous.
3 Shai Cullop // Mar 24, 2009 at 1:20 pm
My concern is that the numbers they had in their notebooks and did not reference were correct…The numbers Dr. Templeton and Dr. Conniff touted in the meeting were falsified. When I asked Dr. Templeton if she were aware that her numbers were incorrect and that they had an uninformed vote, her response was rather cold and uninviting. “The data will show,” she said…when do we get to see the correct data?
4 Grumbling at RU // Mar 24, 2009 at 3:18 pm
Everyone should get used to the idea that the data-gathering phase of this process has been a joke. Note that Anthropology was not under review in that meeting, because it was eliminated with no real justification at all. In fact, it’s well known by the faculty that Anthropology has more than doubled its number of majors in the last two years. If a program growing at that rate can be eliminated without deliberation, then you can rest assured that this administration believes it can do anything at all.
And maybe they’re right.
5 Grumbling at RU // Mar 24, 2009 at 3:19 pm
Oh, and it’s also well known that Debra Templeton is the “hand” of the Provost.
6 tlynne // Mar 24, 2009 at 5:57 pm
I am pondering why there is not a demand for a re-vote concerning Appalachian Studies considering that the information that was distributed for the program was inaccurate? Just a thought…
7 Glen T. Martin // Mar 24, 2009 at 9:23 pm
As President of the campus chapter of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), a nation-wide organization concerned with due process, fairness, and effective faculty participation in academic programs, here are some of our observations of this botched, arbitrary, and corrupt review process:
1. Peace studies (and the other minors) were flagged according to criteria that do not apply to these minors (SHEV CRITERIA). (And many have questioned the data that the university was using in its so-called decision-making).
2. Apparently, a student representative was appointed to the Program Review Committee the day before the committee was to meet (surely just a small oversight on the part of the administration that the students might have some interest in the fate of their university).
3. A wholly unreasonable timeline was demanded of the departments and interdisciplinary programs slotted for review by these arbitrary criteria making the entire process superficial, unprofessional, and educationally disastrous.
4. A number of these programs (such as the interdisciplinary minors) were just reviewed last year in a lengthy process that produced serious documents describing these programs. These serious documents were ignored and a hastily assembled 5 page summary was all that was allowed before the committee.
5. The instructions for responding to Expedited Program Review differed from the standard criteria for regularly scheduled reviews. To many they appeared arbitrary and inadequate to create a real reprsentation of the strenths and weaknesses of these programs.
6. Programs like PHRE and Soc/Anth have already engaged in efforts to restructure based on the dean’s recommendations and changed circumstances. The Expedited Program Review ignored these efforts and interfered with their development since faculty had to drop everything in order to respond to the arbitrary demand that they produce a new Program Review document.
6. For several programs (such as Peace Studies, Food and Nutrition, and Appalachian Studies) the statistics provided by Institutional research were incorrect.
7. Nearly two years ago, the President and Provost began a process of administrative bullying by demanding arbitrarily that RU’s general education program be scrapped and a new core curriculum program be created with great haste. Everything had to be dropped while this agenda was rammed through the senate and committee process to meet arbitrary deadlines.
The Expedited Program Review process reflects continued administrative bullying in which many faculty were harrassed and dismayed by this totalitarian attitude (reflected also in the closure of the Dedmon Center to all but a few select students). The administration’s distain and disrespect for faculty, for genuine faculty participation, for due process, for honest educational improvement, and ultimately for the quality of education at RU is astonishing
8. For two years now the Faculty Senate has not been able to set its own agenda, articulate its own priorities, or develop a coherent vision of education because it has been bullied into perpetually responding to administrative agendas, and arbitary top-down demands.
8 Roudy Red // Mar 25, 2009 at 12:47 am
Glen: You write the truth. This administration has no concept of what motivates you and your cohort of beleaguered faculty colleagues; of what education is even about; or of the outreach function of a university. Neither they have the sense or calculation to cover their deviation with anything resembling facts and logic. They rely on the “big lie”, complete opacity, and trumped up forcing functions as means to achieve their ends? What these latter goals happen to be in the context of a once excellent regional university–not too far gone yet–is myterious to me still.
Is it a business school; A tech school; some combination? We have many fine and productive examples of such institutions. Whatever they hope for can be staunched, and I am so heartened that at long last the students and faculty of RU are rallying to save their school.
DO NOT GO GENTLY INTO THEIR DARK NIGHT!
Press them at every opportunity with facts and the rightness of our cause. To relent now would be a disaster. Hopefully, thousands will show up Thursday, as well as overwhelm KYLE’s website ploy to relieve us of the responsibilty of being there!
SEE you on the evning news Thursday!!
9 TehShay // Mar 26, 2009 at 1:03 pm
Someone needs to get an honest (gasp!) answer out of ol’ Penelope over how she is justifying her actions. We also need answers from whoever “elected” her dictator–er… “president” of our university.
I will not return to Radford after I am done here, nor will my children.
Leave a Comment