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The central rationale for these cuts at @uvmvermont and @UVMcas is that students just aren't very interested in humanities classes, and therefore we shouldn't offer them anymore. This is disingenuous at best. Let's get a few actual facts straight here. THREAD: https://twitter.com/vtdigger/status/1334653597754265613
FACT: there are multiple accounts of prospective students at UVM literally not even being told about the existence of the college of arts and sciences here. It is by far the largest, and allow me to underscore, also one of the biggest revenue generating colleges at UVM. 2/
FACT: a lot of the revenue generated by the college of arts and sciences is used to pay for and to subsidize many other things in other parts of the university (not least, admin salaries). This "budget crisis" within the college is largely the product of accounting practices. 3/
FACT: the rationale for cutting programs is a small # of majors, and that getting rid of these programs somehow saves money. This is FALSE. Tuition revenue is generated by enrollment in courses, not # of majors. So far no one is willing to explain why this metric was used. 4/
FACT: UVM made $24 million dollars last year. The whole argument that we need to get rid of core liberal arts disciplines like religion and geology (because those are so irrelevant to the world right now, amiright?) is an IDEOLOGICAL one by the admin and board of trustees. 5/
This would be like a car dealership hiding it's best-selling, most profitable car in a back room to gather dust, using the profits it generates *anyway* to subsidize selling totally different cars, and then deciding not to make that car anymore because no one wants to buy it. 6/
Yes, declining enrollments are a problem. Of course they are. But if you don't invest, if you slash budgets & neglect programs, you can't expect them to thrive. If you stop hiring faculty, of course programs will wither and die. We are being bled to death & then blamed for dying.
