Task forces formed for unplaced depts

As task forces take steps to determine the future of various programs at Northeastern, uncertainty remains among members of the university community about the restructuring of the College of Arts and Sciences (CAS), faculty members have said. The Communication Studies Department, General Studies program and the School of Education have not yet been placed.
Within the Communication Studies Department, there have been ongoing discussions as to whether the three concentrations within Communication Studies should be divided among the new colleges, the College of Arts, Media and Design, the College of Science and the College of Social Sciences and Humanities. An e-mail sent by Provost Stephen Director to faculty Oct. 27 specifies that the task force is to place the department “as it is currently constituted.”
Though the process will be completed in a little over a month, former chair of the Communication Studies Department and current Communication Studies professor Richard Katula said he thinks they should have been placed in the College of Social Sciences and Humanities automatically.
“I guess what I wish is that this had never happened,” Katula said. “We could have been located in Social Sciences and Humanities right from the start, obviously there are things going on that led us to this point … Now we have to respect the process and do the best we can to get our students’ futures straightened out.”
Others within the department do not agree, said Katula, opting to be placed in the College of Arts, Media and Design, due to the three different concentrations:  public advocacy and rhetoric, organizational communication and media studies.
Katula said he feels the best future for Communication Studies students will be in the College of Social Sciences and Humanities because most professors’ educations are from humanities-based programs.
“I think there are students who are interested in getting a well rounded liberal arts education, and that usually means an education in the social sciences and humanities, with a little sprinkling of the technical,” he said. “That’s where they will best be served in getting the education they came here to get.”
Middler communication studies major Emma Bloomfield said she agreed with Katula about the placement, and that the media studies concentration belongs with the rest of Communication Studies.
“It’s definitely focused on people interacting with each other and the communication within groups that makes it a social science,” she said.
Some faculty members in the School of Education consider the school’s location within the new colleges less important than the conservation of programs that currently exist within the school.
“I’m less concerned with actually where [the School of Education] is moved than [with] the fact that it is a department that can be both a professional training department as well as an academic research department,” education and Jewish studies professor Harvey Shapiro said, though he is not on the task force. “That it can draw upon social sciences, the humanities, the natural sciences and apply those sciences to education.”
Mathematics professor Carla Oblas, who also isn’t on the task force, said she felt it was possible the restructuring could create an emphasis on math and science in the School of Education if it were placed in the College of Science based on the center for Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) education, which is designed to help improve these fields within the university. If this move takes place, the placement of the School of Education could limit the resources available to students in majors outside of STEM, she said.
Mathematics professor Robert Case, who isn’t on the task force either, said his personal vision would be for the School of Education to establish itself at the forefront of urban education, and that the placement of the School of Education is second to the ability of the school to accomplish this goal.
“Here’s a moment to talk about the future of education,” he said. “I would like to see what the task force is saying about this. I don’t want to see education just tucked in somewhere at the last moment.”
Shapiro said that the task force for the School of Education is chaired by current interim dean of CAS Bruce Ronkin, and made up of tenured faculty from the School of Education, though more details are not known. The first of six task force meetings for the Communication Studies Department will be held today, and is chaired by College of Business Administration professor and coordinator Marjorie Platt and is comprised of representatives from both new colleges as well as tenured Communication Studies faculty.
Other task forces announced in the e-mail are for interdisciplinary programs in arts and sciences, undeclared majors and general studies, committees and policies for all three new colleges.
According to the e-mail sent to faculty and staff, the placement of the General Studies Program will be completed by Jan. 10. None of the faculty or staff in the General Studies Program responded to e-mail and phone requests for comment.