Two months after the announcement of the university’s first program cuts, Utah State University students are struggling to understand the changes their school will undergo.
As of April 29, USU has cut 36 credentials and merged five colleges into two. Since the announcement of these changes, students at USU have expressed concerns with the university’s level of transparency during this transition.
USU geology student Sami Sampson urged the administration to increase communication.
“There have been a lot of moments as a student where I’ve felt out of the loop,” said Sampson. “I feel like transparency is key with students, because there’s thousands of us, and we’re all putting our livelihoods into these colleges for our education.”
Es Barnes, a theater arts student at USU, shared this sentiment.
“The fact is, we are the majority of the influence at the school, because we make up what the school is. The students are the school,” said Barnes. “And so if we had been informed a little bit earlier, or at least … been in the loop, I wonder what would have been different.”
According to Barnes, students of the Caine College of the Arts and the College of Sciences fear they may be overlooked after the merge with the College of Humanities and Social Sciences. Students also expressed concern regarding the merged colleges' student governments, and respective college weeks and traditions.
Although nervous about the future of the arts at Utah State, Barnes is excited about building a bigger sense of community and getting to know students they wouldn’t normally cross paths with.
After attending a meeting with the Utah Board of Higher Education on June 6, Amanda DeRito, USU’s associate vice president for strategic communications, responded to students’ concerns and gave insight on the university’s process when considering these changes.
“We've been really careful about what we provide directly to students, because we know students are harder to reach,” said DeRito. “They often don't check their emails, so we want to make sure that when we provide information to students, it's more in a final form.”
DeRito also explained that the university chose to cut programs that had low populations, and that cut programs will be taught out.
Alan Smith, Utah State’s interim president, presented USU’s reinvestment plan at the meeting, detailing that they considered programs with lower student enrollment, graduation rates, and professional outcomes when planning program cuts.
Alongside program elimination, the university’s administration also considered program effectiveness, cost-efficient instruction and programing, and administrative efficiency when putting together their disinvestment strategy.
Students are eager to learn more about the upcoming changes at Utah State, which DeRito explained will be announced in early July.
DeRito also encouraged students to reach out to their respective advisors for support and clarity during this time of transition.
More information on budget cuts from all Utah universities can be found here.
