Though Provost Stephen Director has submitted his plans for reorganizing the College of Arts and Sciences (CAS) and the College of Criminal Justice (CCJ), the Communications Studies and Education departments have yet to be placed.
In the plan, Director said task forces would be formed to help decide "the best home" for the departments, but whether they go into the new College of Science, College of Social Sciences and Humanities or the College of Arts, Media and Design has raised much debate.
On Wednesday at 11:45 a.m. the faculty senate will hold a meeting in 450 Dodge Hall to further discuss the plan and vote for it's approval.
"Communication studies has traditionally for the last century been associated with the humanities and social sciences, though we kind of cut across the boundaries of those two departments. In my opinion, that's where we should go," Richard Katula said, a communication studies professor and former chairman.
This is complicated though, he said, since many communication studies majors take production courses in either radio or television, which have helped students get better co-ops and job opportunities.
"So now as I understand it, we are going to lose our production courses to the new College of Arts, Media and Design," he said. "They are taking a vital component of one of our concentrations. While I respect the people that have the power to do this, I think it's a real slap in the face to the 650 or so communication studies majors."
If communication studies is placed in the College of Social Sciences and Humanities, the logistics of how communication and production classes would be divided between different colleges is still undetermined, though Katula said he is wary.
"I'm hoping that we will be allowed to go into the College of Social Sciences and Humanities, and we will be able to keep our concentration and production courses," Katula said. "I think this new configuration threatens that for the students."
Other groups of faculty in the department with concentrations in cultural studies, a subset of the communication studies department, are looking to be placed in the College of Arts, Media and Design. This may lead to the Communication Studies Department splitting between two colleges "if we have to," Katula said.
Some students said they think that splitting the department is the best option, since the three concentrations are so different.
"I think it's hard to place Communications Studies because it already has three concentrations," Ivy Pribish, a sophomore communication studies major said. "It would make more sense if they made the concentrations majors and split them between the colleges."
However, Katula said he is against splitting CAS and CCJ into three colleges, especially given the economic climate.
"As I understand it, this is going to cost well over a million dollars just to implement it, plus all the new administration," he said. "The case is not clear to me that there is a compelling reason to put even further financial burden on the students."
Katula also said that it does not make sense that the university is cutting costs in several areas just to implement this.
“I think the faculty should be up in arms since we didn't get raises this year," he said. "My take on this is from a moral and economic point of view, we should be doing everything we can to make due with as few administrative bodies as we can. It's not as though we haven't been doing it for 30 to 35 years."
At yesterday's State of the University town hall meeting, President Joseph Aoun and Provost Stephen Director argued that the restructure is needed immediately.
"The change is needed to allow us to increase the involvement of the schools and the life of the university, and to make the schools more nimble to achieve their greatness," Aoun said.
Future uncertain for comm dept
Published: Thursday, October 1, 2009
Updated: Thursday, October 1, 2009
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