A list of proposed academic program changes — including the proposed elimination of several programs — was released by Interim Provost Katherine Aiken earlier this week.
The proposal indicates the end is near for the yearlong Idaho State Board of Education mandated program prioritization process. The process, dubbed “Focus For the Future” by Aiken, will now undergo a two-week review of the proposed program changes.
“Following a two-week comment period, Provost Council and other groups will consider all input and make recommendations to President Staben,” Aiken wrote in the memo sent to all faculty and staff Wednesday. “As savings result from this proposal, we will reinvest them in University of Idaho people and programs.”
Aiken spoke about the proposal and the program prioritization process as a whole at the weekly Faculty Senate meeting Tuesday, but couldn’t be reached for comment once the proposal was released.
According to the memo, five undergraduate programs are recommended for elimination, while all the music programs are proposed to be consolidated into a single degree program.
Three master’s programs are being considered for elimination, while none of the doctoral programs will be eliminated. However, several doctoral programs will be consolidated. The only program with a proposal for investment from the university is the doctoral program in Food Science.
A list of non-academic programs and their proposed actions was not included in the memo.
“I’ve been a faculty member for a long time,” Aiken said at the Faculty Senate meeting. “I’m sure there’s a lot of people here and a lot of people who will read these minutes who won’t believe me. But I can look at you and say they are just that, proposals. I am prepared and expect to make changes in that set of proposals and to engage in conversation about them.”
The full memo can be viewed with the list of proposed program changes online at uiargonaut.com.
Aiken said she expects many changes will be made to the proposals after the two-week review period.
The program prioritization process began almost exactly one year ago when the SBOE asked all four-year Idaho higher education institutions to do a full-scale evaluation of every program. They defined a program as any identifiable entity that consumes resources. It refers to any and all academic programs, as well as administrative and support units. Aiken said there are more than 400 programs at UI that fit this definition.
In addition to the proposed actions for academic programs, the memo from Aiken included future recommendations for both academic and non-academic programs.
The employee classification and compensation process was part of the already completed proposals. In addition, the university is proposing to close the UI pharmacy this summer.
“There are a whole number of things on this list that say it’s going to take us two years to do this in a lot of cases, and I think that’s true,” Aiken said at the faculty senate meeting.
The program prioritization was started under the supervision of Aiken and Interim Provost Don Burnett. The pair defined the way all programs would be rated, and based the process off a previous prioritization program completed by UI.
Aiken told The Argonaut in November that as higher education in Idaho continues to experience budget shortfalls, this prioritization process will help each institution find ways to be more efficient.
“I don’t think the pie is getting bigger, so we need to rethink about how we cut that pie into pieces,” Aiken said at the time.
Aiken said Tuesday that she believes the proposals they’ve developed will make the university more efficient.
“We’re not as certain about how much actual cash will come into the system as a result of these things, because some of them we’re still looking at and trying to decide what we’re going to do and that’s an ongoing process,” Aiken said.
Aiken and the provosts from all other institutions will present their process, final changes and proposals to the state board in August. Although the board could determine at that meeting that UI’s process for prioritization is unacceptable, Aiken said she feels confident in the process and is not fearful the board will be unsatisfied.
“We asked questions — how do we measure success and efficiency in those programs? How do we rate those programs compared to other programs? We did that,” Aiken said.
Aiken said she believes the process is far from finished, as the SBOE further determines what they’d like the institutions to do with the data they’ve collected.
“They have asked that I be able to say — and I said I think that I can — that we have not given anybody a pass and that we have looked comprehensively at every program at the University of Idaho,” Aiken said.
Additional reporting contributed by Amber Emery.
Kaitlyn Krasselt can be reached at [email protected]