Students, staff face crossroad

When the University of Nevada, Las Vegas kills a half dozen or so departments and programs this week, what happens to the students? The faculty? The staff?

A little bit of everything: Some will stay, some will switch their focus, and some will leave.

The university must cut more than $10 million from its budget next year. That will mean the elimination of some programs.

The list of programs that could be cut has been narrowed down by committees, but it is up to President Neal Smatresk to make the final call, subject to approval by the higher education system's governing Board of Regents in June.

Potentially on the block are programs from engineering to education, recreation to marriage therapy.

"In the time I've been here, we've seen programs being built up. It's always been onward and upward," said the university's provost, Michael Bowers, who has been at UNLV for 26 years. "We've never seen anything like this before."

Students in whichever programs get cut will be given two years to finish before the program is gone. No new students will be accepted into those programs. Tenured faculty will be allowed to stay, but will have to teach courses in a new area.

Untenured faculty and professional staff will be given layoff notices. Because of contracts, they will be allowed to stay at the university up to one year. Classified employees, who are state employees and not employees of the university system, will be allowed to transfer within the state employee system, subject to seniority rules.

But is two years enough time for students to finish? Probably not all of them.

Anonh Ratsamy, who is studying Informatics, a field involving computers and engineering, said he's lucky that he'll be finished with the program next fall.

"If I wasn't so far along in my degree I probably would have changed my major to criminal justice, since I'm already minoring in that," Ratsamy said in a Facebook message.

He wants to enter the cybersecurity field, perhaps in law enforcement.

UNLV, like almost any university, does have experience with eliminating programs. Often, it's because a program has simply lost its popularity. Or it gets folded into another program. Cutting programs because there isn't enough money to fund them is a rarity.

Two years ago, the bachelor's degree in University Studies was eliminated. The program had about 400 students in it, but Smatresk, then the provost, didn't believe it fit with the university's mission.

Instead, the program was essentially folded into the existing Interdisciplinary Studies program.

Students could remain with their old program, but had to finish within two years.

Now that those two years are about up, Tim Gauthier, who ran the old program and now runs the new one, said all but about 50 of the University Studies students have finished.

Getting those students through the program before it expired required frequent contact with them, he said. They were encouraged to see their advisers often. Students who have not finished will be switched over to Inter­disciplinary Studies.

Though the programs that will be shut down this time will be eliminated for different reasons, officials expect the process to be similar.

Chris Hudgins, dean of the College of Liberal Arts, called the shutting down of the University Studies program "remarkably successful."

He dismissed concerns that a degree in a program that no longer exists would be devalued.

"The degree still exists," he said.

Bowers, the provost, said a college degree's value is in the institution itself, not so much in the program.

"Any degree from Harvard is going to be prestigious," he said. "But that's because it's Harvard."

Bowers said he expects that some students in the affected programs will change their majors.

Others will probably leave the university. But he said it's impossible to say how many.

It also is too early to say how many professors the university could lose. Once it is decided which programs will go, it will be relatively easy to calculate how many staffers and untenured professors will be laid off.

But it is also likely that some tenured professors who perhaps won't be comfortable switching specialties will leave, as well.

Some may choose to retire, Bowers said.

Smatresk has extended the deadline to accept the university's buyout to the end of next week. Some might want to move on.

"They might start looking for jobs at other institutions," Bowers said.

Ratsamy, the Informatics student, said the department has had a mixed atmosphere lately.

Graduating seniors are glad to be getting out on time. Others are upset.

"I know the Informatics instructors I had this semester are upset since a few are graduate students and one was considering pursuing a doctorate in Informatics, and now that may not a possibility here at UNLV," Ratsamy said.

"Faculty and students have invested years in this program and it seems like the university wants to cut it before it has a chance to prove its worth."

Contact reporter Richard Lake at rlake@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0307.