By: Max Able and Leighanne Jordan
Story has been updated with a quote from Assistant Vice President for Communication Jason Cissel.
On March 22, Bellarmine President Dr. Susan Donovan officially announced changes to support the new strategic vision called Bellarmine Forward.
Donovan sent an email to students and announced the changes being made.
“While these decisions are difficult, our Trustees and I are confident that we have taken the steps necessary to position this university for a vibrant and healthy future,” she said in the email message.
According to the email, Bellarmine Forward is a new strategic vision to phase out select majors over the next few years. Students enrolled in these majors and associated minors will have the opportunity to graduate with their declared majors and minors and all faculty members associated with the select majors will have the option to return in the fall.
A press release on Bellarmine’s website said that this plan is centered on the success of both Bellarmine students and the Metro Louisville area. The strategic vision capitalizes on career outcomes in higher education and will provide more accurate job opportunities, according to the release.
The university’s email to students also said, “No disciplines are being eliminated from our standard core curriculum, meaning all students will continue to have exposure to a range of liberal arts courses.”
The press release listed the following majors being phased out:
Undergraduate degrees in aging studies, foreign languages and international studies, philosophy, physics, radiation therapy, senior living leadership, Spanish and theatre;
Graduate degree in athletic training; and
Undergraduate and graduate degrees in medical laboratory science.
"We are dealing with the same challenges impacting many colleges across the nation, with an 8% drop in overall U.S. undergraduate college enrollment from 2019 to 2022 – about 1.2 million students!" Assistant Vice President for Communication Jason Cissel wrote in an email to Knights Media Network. "Fortunately, our relative position of strength means that -- unlike a lot of other institutions -- we were able to limit the impact to a small number of majors with no faculty layoffs announced."
The Bellarmine chapter of the American Association of University Professors responded to the changes in a letter to Donovan.
In the letter, the AAUP expressed its ‘incredible disappointment’ and ‘strong opposition’ to the academic restructuring. The letter also said the AAUP doesn’t believe that the restructuring addresses the financial issues, which the letter stated stemmed from “unsustainably high expenses combined with inadequate tuition revenue and a paucity of revenue outside of tuition.”
The university never mentioned in any of its official communication with students or its press release that it faces a multi-million dollar budget deficit, according to a source who wishes to remain anonymous. University officials have not stated the exact amount of the deficit.
Dr. Courtney Keim and Dr. Charles Hatten are representatives of Bellarmine’s AAUP chapter, which is an organization that advocates for college professors around the country, similar to a union. Keim and Hatten said the decision to phase out programs is not only an unnecessary response to the problem but also contradicts what Bellarmine stands for as a liberal arts university.
“Liberal arts means we’re not just focusing on helping people get the accounting job or the nursing job…,” Hatten said. “Not that we don’t care about that stuff, but we also have this sense of teaching the whole person, teaching these very important disciplines that will help you be a better person and a better citizen. A lot of the faculty feel that the whole identity of Bellarmine is being altered in a negative way.”
Keim and Hatten also said they’re concerned that faculty in the departments being phased out will lose the protection of tenure, meaning that after next year, professors who are already tenured can be let go at any time.
“It [tenure] is the bedrock of academic freedom,” Keim said.
According to the AAUP website, aaup.org, “Academic freedom is the indispensable requisite for unfettered teaching and research in institutions of higher education.”
Said Keim: "Academic freedom gives students the education they need and deserve. Therefore, taking away tenure and academic freedom jeopardizes the education students receive."
Keim also said that for faculty who don’t have the protection of tenure, they might be, “in front of a classroom of students, worried about what to say because it might affect somebody who’s on a board of trustees, or a [college] president might get mad.”
Keim said that with the protection of tenure, “As a psychologist… instead of that [threat] being what guides me, it’s ‘what does the science of psychology say?’”
Students affected by the phase-out of select majors and minors were contacted by the university and were invited to attend an optional information meeting March 24.
Sophomore Chase Duvall will be one of the last students to graduate from Bellarmine with a degree in philosophy. He said philosophy is too important to phase out.
“You literally learn everything in the world,” he said. “We learn law, natural law and human law. We learn all the psychology stuff. We learn everything. It even gets down to math.”
Senior aging studies major Brett Pfaadt said he feels for his younger classmates who will be affected by the changes.
“I’ll be able to finish my degree no problem, but obviously [I] feel bad for the younger guys who are going to have to transfer or switch majors,” he said. “It’s not a popular major, there aren’t many people in it, so I see why they’re dropping it, but it is rough for the younger students.”(Reporters' note: Students do not have to transfer or switch majors unless they choose to do so because current majors and minors in the programs being phased out will be able to graduate with those majors and minors.)
First-year physics major Firstene Arvhie Badua said he heard rumors about the university phasing out his major last semester.
“I was just worried about my path to graduating because I’m still a freshman,” he said.
Badua said he’s been told that he’ll be able to finish his physics degree before the major is phased out and will stay at Bellarmine.
“I already talked to multiple professors in the physics department, and they said I don’t have anything to worry about because all the tenured professors are staying so they’re going to offer upper-class physics until I graduate,” he said.
Samantha Hacker is a junior communication and design, art and technology major with a minor in theater and is the president of Alpha Psi Omega, Bellarmine’s theatre community.
Hacker said she is upset with the university.
“It feels like a slap in the face. For an institution to pride itself on diversity and having a liberal arts-based curriculum, this sure is a funny way of showing it,” she said.
“I find it incredibly disheartening and upsetting that the Board of Trustees moved forward with this decision,” Hacker said, “Having theatre majors and minors offered at Bellarmine allows for the theatre community to grow and the Alpha Thea Beta chapter of Alpha Psi Omega to thrive on campus.”
Haley Planicka a senior with majors in Spanish and international studies, communication and anthropology, serves as president of the Student Government Association (SGA).
“You can’t put a price on this degree [Spanish] and its ability to unite us cross-culturally in forging a more compassionate, inclusive and unified society,” Planicka said.
Planicka attended several board of trustee meetings throughout the fall semester.
“In working closely with other students, faculty, staff and administration in my four years here, I know that this decision wasn’t made lightly. We all want Bellarmine to be able to thrive and continue to change the lives of students here, as it has done to us,” Planicka said.
Provost Dr. Paul Gore did not comment despite multiple attempts by Knights Media Network to interview him.
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