As the token West campus columnist, it fell upon me to explain the reactions to the changes to the University proposed by President Michael Crow last week.
Though my particular program was already slated to be moved to the Downtown campus, the several changes proposed to the West campus sadden me. Programs are in the process of being eliminated, moved, re-organized or downsized.
Some programs are moving to other campuses, such as the School of Social Work and the West campus nursing program, both of which are joining the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice and moving to the Downtown campus.
The only college remaining will be the New College of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences, with majors such as history, English, sociology, psychology and women’s studies. The graduate degrees of these respective majors have been eliminated.
These changes are sweeping, matched in kind only by those to the Polytechnic campus in Mesa. Though the Downtown Phoenix and Tempe campuses are experiencing program reductions and re-organization, it is not as widely felt as on these two outlying campuses.
These changes have been discussed in abstract terms of numbers and money. But it is the effect on students that is the most important.
When I first started working toward my graduate degree in August, I was happy that it was on the West campus. It is small in size, lending to a more intimate feel. The atmosphere is less hectic, the classroom technology and set-up a welcome change from the older ones I was used to in my undergraduate classes.
But what is more distressing to me is the fact that so many students will find their programs completely dissolved. In the future, they will be left without programs of study, many more without the funding they were counting on. What they will do is anybody’s guess.
I trust that these changes are in the best interest of the overall student population, that the administration did not wantonly choose some programs to be eliminated over others. But that does not mean that the students who are most affected will not feel it most acutely.
Students left without programs should be offered allowances when transferring to similar programs on other campuses or even in other colleges. To put these students at a disadvantage when the change is no fault of their own is unthinkable.
Advisors should be working with students to find suitable programs into which they can easily transition; programs similar to those being cut should be accommodating when accepting these transfers.
While I was expecting to move to the Downtown campus before the budget crisis, many others were not. Many are angry or frustrated. More are in shock. Many are unsure of anything. But one thing is nearly certain: the West campus will not recover from this for decades.
Janne is a criminology and criminal justice graduate student and can be reached at janne.gaub@asu.edu.
