UT Restructures Liberal Arts College, Targets Gender, Ethnic Studies
By Natalia Rodriguez
Reporting Texas
The Department of Mexican-American and Latino Studies was one of seven that will no longer exist after a restructuring in the College of Liberal Arts. Natalia Rodriguez/Reporting Texas
The University of Texas at Austin on Thursday announced plans to shutter seven departments in the College of Liberal Arts devoted to ethnicity, gender and international studies and to review curriculum related to those subjects.
UT President Jim Davis said in a campus-wide email that Mexican-American and Latino Studies, African and African Diaspora Studies, Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies and American Studies will no longer be separate departments but will be consolidated into one school called Social and Cultural Analysis. Likewise, a new School of European and Eurasian Studies is being created from the current departments of French and Italian, Germanic Studies and Slavic and Eurasian Studies.
The UT consolidation comes two years after it eliminated diversity, equity and inclusion programs and a month after Texas A&M University ended its women and gender studies program. Faculty there were told that 200 courses could be affected by a new A&M System policy restricting classroom discussion of race and gender.
UT’s announcement did not address potential changes to individual courses or faculty. But Davis said the university is “initiating a review of the curriculum of these areas to determine what majors, minors, and courses will be offered in the newly formed departments.”
With the uncertainty, consolidated faculty are expecting the worst.
“We don’t know much of anything, but we can anticipate it’s going to involve major slashing of budgets,” said Mexican-American and Latino studies professor Karma Chavez. “It likely will eventually lead to firing faculty. It’s definitely going to mean lower quality of education for students who want to study this major.”
Davis said decisions to consolidate the programs came after months of analyzing a “combination of factors, including size, scope, academic mission, student demand, student-to-faculty ratio, resource allocation, and other dimensions.” He mentioned that student-to-faculty ratios have varied widely — from a low of 2-to-1 to a high of 60-to-1 — among the 26 current departments in the College of Liberal Arts. He did not provide the student-teacher ratios of the seven departments targeted for consolidation.
Chavez said that faculty-to-student ratios were not discussed during a Zoom call Thursday when liberal arts Interim Dean Daniel Sosa informed her and other leaders of the affected departments about the changes. She said Davis’ email was the first time the department chairs had heard it mentioned as a factor.
“We can look to the empirical record that exists, which is to say that our provost has been on an extensive speaking tour where he repeatedly and publicly demonizes the study of identity,” Chavez said, referring to UT’s new provost, William Inboden. “We can use that factual information that he’s made public to suggest that this is part of his political vision for higher education.”
The announcement comes after months of protest from students regarding the possibility over departmental consolidation, including one two weeks ago.
“I know that the prospect of change has prompted some concern,” Davis said in the campus email. “But it is important to bear in mind that many subjects worthy of research and teaching do not necessarily need to be isolated as their own small academic departments.”
He said students already enrolled in the affected departments can continue their degree plans within the new, consolidated departments.