The Louisiana Board of Regents Academic and Student Affairs Committee voted to eliminate the B.A. major in philosophy at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette today. In an article appearing in yesterday’s Lafayette, Louisiana local newspaper, The Advertiser, Tina Marie Macias reported that the Board of Regents were recommending the elimination of the Philosophy major because of its status as a “low-completer” (news story here).
According to the story, programs are issued “low-completer” status if a major has less than 8 students graduating per year, or 40 graduates in a 5-year span. The philosophy program has been designated a “low-completer” program at least 4 times since 1986.
Keith Korcz, a professor of philosophy at ULaLa, makes a fine point in the article. His point is that the school will no longer be viewed as a university if it rids itself of core liberal arts programs, such as philosophy, literature, history, sociology, etc. The only rebuttal noted in the article comes from the Regents’ spokeswoman, Meg Casper, who’s clearly an enlightened scholar of immense proportion. Her rebuttal: “have they looked at the budget?”
It’s unclear what to make of the “low-completer” designation and how that designation is bad for a program. First, philosophy programs aren’t producing graduates in massive numbers because completing a degree in philosophy is much harder than completing a degree in business, sociology, or engineering. Majoring in philosophy is harder because, at least in some cases, the subject matter is abstract. Contending with abstracta is more difficult to grasp than learning some rules of supply and demand and how they apply in macro- or micro-economic conditions. Students tend to dislike classes challenging them to grasp concepts they had never considered important. Fewer students are attracted to major in philosophy. So, the philosophy programs at a number of universities probably don’t produce more than 10 or 11 at a time.
Second, low-completer status may be indicative of a major’s degree of difficulty. Students cower at a major where they may end up with a grade lower than a B+. Since it’s possible a student might receive a C in a philosophy course, they’re probably not going to become a major in that field.
Third, and related to the second point, students aren’t seeking out challenging courses of study. There’s no reason to enroll in challenging university courses if a student can take another course where they can do just enough work and get an A. Just enough work these days qualifies for receiving an A in a course. This probably isn’t so in the low-completer degree programs at ULaLa. (Of course this attitude has become a problem for businesses too recently. Graduates now argue that they have earned a raise just for doing what it is in their job description to do. They haven’t considered that a pay raise is only for those who do work above-and-beyond what’s stated in their job description. Look out business world here comes the entitlement generation!)
Finally – well at least for now anyway – where are all the administrators on this? In the places I’ve worked the last few years administrators, i.e., Deans, Vice Presidents, Chancellors, etc., have emphasized the importance of tightening academic standards. The primary complaint is that students’ grades are inflated, and too many students are graduating with an unearthly 4.0 GPA. In one analysis I reviewed, programs that were “high-completers” (on LA standards those with many many more graduates per year and per 5-year period than those nasty “low-completer” programs) had nearly 80% of graduates with a GPA of 4.0 and another 15% of graduates with a GPA of 3.5 or higher. This suggests that students gravitate toward programs in which they’ll receive higher grades. Eliminating the “low-completer” programs may only add to the “tighter academic standards” headaches the administrators already suffer. Perhaps the administration should have thought about this and lobbied the Regents to reconsider dissolving the philosophy program.
I’m just speculating about the difficulty of ULaLa’s philosophy program. But it’s not hard to imagine that the philosophy instructors at ULaLa held students to stricter academic standards than their counterparts in some other disciplines.
Agreed! Nice post.
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I agree that the loss of a Philosophy major is a terrible idea that should be fought tooth and nail. However, the arguments made in this post aren’t well made. Suggesting that philosophy is a more difficult major than others like engineering is a sweeping generalization. Abstract concepts are only more difficult to people who are not comfortable with them.
There are various reasons why people are not philosophy majors. Philosophy is not a subject that many people take seriously. Also, most people choose their major pragmatically, and don’t see any career possibilities that could come from a degree in philosophy. To suggest that the only reason students aren’t philosophy majors is that they are afraid of bad grades is foolish and frankly insulting.