USAO’s Board of Regents met on September 14th, 2022, in a meeting that ended in the suspension of three academic programs: public policy, political science, and multidisciplinary studies (MDS). While students are understandably upset about these changes, a lot goes into program suspensions behind the scenes.

Every five years, the state Board of Regents reviews academic programs, and this year public policy, political science, and MDS were under review. Bachelor-level programs in Oklahoma must have at least five diplomas awarded in the last five years, or they go under review as low-performing programs. Since these programs did not have the needed enrollment numbers, USAO’s Board of Regents was given an ultimatum: suspend the academic programs for three years with hope to reinstate them or eliminate them completely.

“We suspended these programs to save them,” said President Feaver. “We hope to see public policy and MDS come back at the end of these three years, maybe even earlier.”

“We pulled these programs to organize them and get them back online,” echoed Donna Miles, the Vice President for Academic Affairs “Not to get rid of them.”

However, political science, he says, may be different. President Feaver says that he isn’t sure if he would like to see political science come back, stating that public policy is much more conducive to the liberal arts education that USAO prides itself on.

“There’s a need for people to go into the area of policymaking at the local and national level to develop policies that improve our society in a number of ways,” President Feaver said. “We think that a public policy degree was better suited to that and more relevant getting into that area than political science and that’s why we get tempted to emphasize public policy over political science.”

When asked if any other majors were on the docket for possible suspension or elimination, President Feaver’s answer was an emphatic no. However, according to the Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education, USAO has a few more programs flagged as low performing, including chemistry, mathematics, economics, and physics.

The decision to suspend MDS was a curious one. Multidisciplinary studies is a build-your-own-major program: students choose three or four areas of study to emphasize in and build a major using classes from those areas. This means that there is not an additional drain on resources or extra professors hired to assist with MDS since it utilizes existing majors.

Regardless, MDS is still a major that USAO offers, so it is subject to the same rules as the other majors. Since it did not meet the academic standards laid out by the regents, it has been placed under three-year suspension.

According to Dr. Aleisha Karjala, professor of political science, currently political science has 20 declared majors and minors, a curiously high number for a program marked as low performing. MDS has only three declared majors, while public policy had one declared major at the time the decision to suspend the programs was announced.

Chelsea Fuston, a MDS major, was extremely upset by the board’s decision to suspend her major. “I’m really upset,” she said. “The only way I knew this was coming was through the agenda for the Board of Regent’s meeting. They didn’t even let the students know beforehand so they could show up and make their voices heard.”

Fuston would like to see that change. She urges all USAO students to come to the next Board of Regents meeting to make a statement.

“If we just sat in the empty chairs and let the regents know that we’re here, and the decisions that they’re making directly affect us, that could make the biggest impact,” she said. “I find it absurd that they’re making decisions affecting students without hearing any student’s voices.”

When asked on the future of the political science and public policy professors, the university had no comment.

The next board of regents meeting will be held Wednesday, November 4th, at 1:30 pm, in the Regents Room on the second floor of USAO’s Student Center.

Hannah Dudleson is a English Education major at the University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma.

https://www.okhighered.org/oeis/ProductivityReport/LowProdReports.aspx