Uproar at Liberal Arts Univ. In Va. after Proposal to Eliminate 9 Majors - Most in the Humanities 📣 [View all]

ARLINGTON, Va. (WJLA), Feb. 22, 2023. Ed. 📚

— A proposal to eliminate nine majors – most in the humanities – is causing an uproar at Marymount University, a small Catholic liberal arts school in Arlington, Virginia.

The school’s president Irma Becerra proposed eliminating 9 programs in which students would no longer be able to major or minor: Art, Economics, English, History, Philosophy, Mathematics, Sociology, Secondary Education, and Theology and Religious Studies. One graduate program, English & Humanities, would also be eliminated under the proposal. We can’t imagine it being a university without those programs present,” said Susan Agolini, an associate professor of biology at Marymount University. “

I think it’s going to really decrease the number of students that will take Marymount seriously.” Agolina said she was especially shocked that a Catholic university would eliminate theology as a major.

An online petition on protesting the elimination of the majors had more than 1,500 signatures as of Tuesday afternoon.

“I resumed my academic career at Marymount because they treasured the liberal arts and valued open dialogue and intellectual curiosity at a time when both were unpopular in national discourse,” Mike De Robbio, a 2020 graduate in liberal studies, wrote in a message to WJLA. “Gutting these programs would be a death knell [to] academic and intellectual inquiry, and would certainly not help to heal the divide in discourse that we have in the country.”

“Marymount describes itself in its mission on its website as a comprehensive Catholic university that has a grounding in the liberal arts. I don’t see how we could continue to call ourselves a comprehensive Catholic university if we don’t offer this wide variety of programs,” said Ariane Economos, the director of the university’s school of humanities, which would have many of its programs cut under the proposal. A statement sent by Marymount Univ. spokesperson Nick Munson said the proposal was not financially driven, but would better use the school’s money, as the 9 majors & one graduate program, “had consistently low enrollment & graduation rates.” Another portion of the statement read:...https://katu.com/news/nation-world/uproar-at-university-in-virginia-after-proposal-to-eliminate-9-majors-marymount-university-small-catholic-liberal-arts-school-arlington-terminating-programs