A member of the Department of Philosophy and Religion there writes:
Just before Spring Break, the University of Northern Iowa administration “spared” the Department of Philosophy and World Religions (and a number of others) from the destruction of their majors, and instead scheduled them for “restructuring”. Since then, faculty have gotten a number of calls from people thinking that the department has been “saved”, along with our jobs. Nothing could be further from the truth. When we got the details, we discovered that the “restructuring” was really just a PR move, the department is to be gutted and the majors destroyed.
The original plan called for the firing (excuse me, buyouts or layoffs) of four tenured faculty members and the elimination of the majors, while keeping services courses and the minors. The new plan—wait for it—now calls for the firing of only four tenured faculty members and the “restructuring” of the majors with the Humanities major. Either way, the result will be a department without enough faculty to support a viable major in either Philosophy or Religion, so the majors will be eliminated in favor of a slightly beefed up version of a general studies or humanities major, perhaps with tracks using the minors, and the primary mission of the department will be reduced to service courses. It’s essentially the same plan with a PR twist, ending in the slow death of the department and another step towards reducing UNI, whose long term mission had been to be Iowa's teaching and liberal arts university, to a four year community and professional college.
UPDATE: This is revealing about the actual financial situation.
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