By HOI ABC
BLOOMINGTON – A year-long academic review Illinois Wesleyan University has culminated in the elimination of three majors, and what the private liberal arts institution described as a “transformation” of some other programs.
IWU’s Board of Trustees on Thursday announced it is discontinuing majors in Anthropology, Religion, and French, and a minor in Italian, according to our news partner HOI ABC.
Program closures may affect up to nine faculty positions at IWU, but “every effort will be made to place a faculty member in another suitable position at the university,” said IWU President Georgia Nugent and Board Chair Timothy Szerlong in a message sent to the university community.
The changes won’t happen in this coming academic year, so students majoring or minoring in these programs will be able to complete their degrees.
Trustees rejected recommendations from the Program Evaluation Task Force (PETF) to close down the Education Studies Department, the School of Art, and the School of Music, “because in the long-range judgments of the Board, the educational mission of the university as a whole would not be enhanced by the discontinuance of these programs,” Nugent and Szerlong said.
The Board identified the School of Music and Philosophy and Sociology departments as programs identified for “transformation.”
“The objective of the review has been to enhance and foster the university’s educational mission, through sustainable programs that meet the learning needs and interests of today’s and tomorrow’s students. This will entail some reallocation of resources, both to strengthen existing programs and to enable new offerings,” the university leaders said.
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