CEDAR FALLS — The Iowa Board of Regents approved the University of Iowa’s request to close various graduate programs in the university’s College of Education during their Academic Affairs Committee meeting Wednesday.
The Board also approved the UI’s request to restructure departments in the College of Liberal Arts, combining the Department of Rhetoric with the Department of Communication Studies and combining the Department of Classics with the Department of Religious Studies.
During the meeting, hosted at the University of Northern Iowa, the regents approved the decision to terminate the graduate and doctorate programs for Elementary Education, Secondary Education, Special Education, and Science Education, citing the proposed programs are currently unused and are remnants of the former academic system in the College of Education.
According to Saba Rasheed Ali, the interim associate provost for graduate and professional education and dean of the Graduate College, no student has been enrolled in the program for the past five years, and the last degree awarded to a student was in fall 2016.
For the past five years, the programs being terminated have been offered through the Department of Teaching and Learning’s programs.
During those five years, Ali explained the university was waiting for students to graduate and finish their program which is why the programs had remained despite a lack of enrollment.
The board has also approved the request for a merger between the Department of Classics and the Department of Religious Studies, with the new department being renamed to the Department of Classics and Religious Studies.
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The undergraduate, graduate, and doctorate programs in Religious Studies will be moved to the renamed Department of Classics and Religious Studies, where it will join undergraduate programs in ancient civilization and classical languages and the graduate programs in classics, Greek, and Latin.
“There is already synergy between those departments,” Tanya Uden-Holman, associate provost for undergraduate education and dean of the university college, said. “There has already been cooperation and we feel really positive about the merger of the two.”
Uden-Holman anticipates approximately $22,000 annually will be saved in costs from moving two department chairs to one.
The Department of Rhetoric and the Department of Communication Studies have also been approved to combine which Uden-Holman said will encourage efficiencies among staff.
Because the Department of Rhetoric offers no undergraduate or graduate majors and there will be no curricular changes, students should not be impacted by the change. Uden-Holman anticipates $65,000 annually in savings by merging the departments.