Today I Am Ashamed of My Alma Mater

Over a week ago, my alma mater, Clarion University of Pennsylvania, released what it touted as a "bold" and "ambitious" workforce plan for the next several years. The backlash was both strong and immediate, forcing the University Administration, currently headed by President Karen Whitney, to release a "Frequently Asked Questions" for its plan. The outrage on social media, as well as a MoveOn.org petition with several thousand signatures, doubtless have already channeled the displeasure of the community, alumni, and students with the plan. The University is accepting public feedback, but this seems to be only a political window-dressing for a plan that Whitney herself was quoted as saying "...is 95-98% a done deal." For over a week I debated over what form a blog on the topic would take, and while I realize that what I have to say here is little different from what I and others have already stated elsewhere, I feel the need to address this issue.

The workforce plan that Clarion is preparing to implement, cutting roughly ten percent of the faculty of the University, is the equivalent of taking a hatchet job to what used to be a quality education at a reasonable cost to students. It boldly slashes departments and dedicated faculty heedless of the consequences that will result, and it is "ambitious" only in how much further harm it seems intent on doing to Clarion's already sinking reputation as an institution of higher education. It blithely assumes growth in programs of dubious worth such as the B.S. in criminal studies while being absolutely willing to destroy already vibrant programs such as the University's Music Department, which will lose six out of seven faculty once the plan goes into effect. The plan fantasizes that currently non-existent programs like a Doctorate in Nursing and a B.S. in Music Entrepreneurship will attract new students while they cut faculty in programs that actually exist and draw in students. How a Music Entrepreneurship program will draw in students to a University that is already in the process of showing an absolute disdain for Music is beyond me.

A further curiosity of the plan is its insistence that increasing retention rates is one key to managing the eight million dollar structural deficit while simultaneously "retrenching" the entire Academic Enrichment department, one of the main academic support programs the University has. How the bright lights of Clarion's Administration think that ending Academic Enrichment will help to increase student retention is a byzantine mystery to me. The cuts to the English department, as well as the Foreign Languages department, are a further insult. The workforce plan would see three more positions lost in English, a department that has already suffered manifold cuts in the past few years, and both the German and French professors would lose their positions. The closing of the Art Gallery, a needless and petty cut to a service that cost the University so little, is a further insult in a plan that already contains so many. These cuts not only will cost the University good, dedicated faculty who went above and beyond teaching in their service to Clarion, but they also strike at the heart of what a liberal education, what a public University is supposed to stand for. 

Some of these trends have been underway for some time but are accelerated in the workforce plan. Instead of placing value on a liberal, balanced education, on an education that aims to cultivate the humanity of students, to borrow Martha Nussbaum's words, Clarion and its Administration place themselves firmly in the camp of those who believe that education is solely for the purpose of job training, that a program has no benefit if it doesn't lend itself immediately to a job. This nearsighted approach undermines valuable contributions to a balanced education, programs and classes that may not in themselves directly correlate to a job but that contribute to the building of a truly educated citizenry, one that can appreciate art and music, one that can write well and speak a foreign language. Without this basic grounding in the humanities, those in business, health, and science do not have the tools to be full participants in our Republic. In fact, if it is concerned about the future careers of its students, the University would never countenance further cuts to the English and Foreign Language departments, as these programs teach students skills that are not only valuable for future careers but absolutely essential. The ability to write and speak well, cultivated in English classes and in the study of foreign languages, as well as the very ability to speak a foreign language are skills that are desperately needed in the workforce of the present and of the future. Clarion undermines its students and dilutes the value of its degree by inflicting cuts on these departments. 

It seems that there is little any of us can do to stop this plan. President Whitney and her fellow administrators seem determined to push it through, whatever the cost to its students and to the University as a whole. Yet at the same time, we still have a duty to protest, to make our voices heard about these unwise and needlessly heavy cuts. Cuts need to be made, that much is clear, but they must be done in a way that helps rather than hinders the students, enhances rather than diminishes the University, and this plan does the exact opposite of that. The blame here is certainly not to be laid entirely on Whitney's doorstep. This problem didn't develop overnight, and a great deal of the blame must be apportioned to the blunders of President Joseph Grunenwald's time at Clarion, when money was spent on flashy new buildings while faculty went into retirement without being replaced in the name of saving money. The ideological and draconian cuts to education under Governor Corbett have forced this day of reckoning sooner than it otherwise might have come, and that in and of itself is worth a separate discussion. Regardless, whomever is to blame for the current situation, these "retrenchments" cannot be justified, not in the name of fiscal discipline and certainly not in the name of providing a good education to Clarion students.

Today, I am ashamed of my alma mater.