German department gone. Community and Rural Sociology department cut. Theatre and Dance department phased out. With WSU administration cutting academic programs, faculty, staff and students are now wondering, what department will be next?
With more budget cuts expected in the foreseeable future, one department is already preparing itself for the worst case scenario.
The Department of Critical Culture, Gender and Race Studies, which includes American studies, comparative ethnic studies and women’s studies, want to prove its value as a discipline.
“We are working together a lot to figure out ways to articulate our value to WSU and humanity,” said Judy Meuth, a clinical associate professor in women’s studies.
During a January meeting with the dean of the College of Liberal Arts, Doug Epperson, he told faculty and staff of its four departments: English, Foreign Language, History and Critical Culture, Gender and Race Studies, there will be one less department after the next round of budget cuts, Meuth said.
When upper administration decided to phase out the Theatre and Dance department, Linda Heidenreich, an associate professor in women’s studies, said every department was vulnerable.
“Faculty began to wonder what kind of labor is valued at WSU, since theatre’s labor was not,” Heidenreich said.
President Floyd told the Daily Evergreen, “It must be of the highest quality imaginable to meet our standards both for our current students as well as for prospective students.”
The university did not respond to a request for further comments prior to deadline.
After the merger, Heidenreich’s first response was, “They wanted all the queers, brown people and women in the same room.”
“Our culture is rooted in racism and sexism,” Heidenreich said. “It was merging diversity.”
All three departments are distinct, but faculty and staff decided to merge to lose less power, Meuth said.
“We had worked for a long time cooperatively together with some women’s studies and American studies courses intersecting,” Meuth said. “It was a big learning curve for everyone but it’s working out.”
Heidenreich said it has been a challenge merging together.
“We used to be able to choose our own faculty and staff,” Heidenreich said, “But we are now with different colleagues we don’t know.”
The departments heard through the grapevine that they would lose faculty so they agreed to the merge to prevent more losses, Heidenreich said.
“WST, CES, and AmSt took a huge cut when we merged into one department,” said Noel Sturgeon, a women’s studies professor, in an e-mail. “I would hope this would mean that we would not be cut any more.”
The department’s ability to serve students has been compromised, and further cuts would be devastating, Sturgeon said.
Alex VanderHouwen, a WSU senior, is majoring in women’s studies and completing a minor in queer studies. He has an up-close and personal view on what makes these departments important.
“They are departments that support their students and know their students names,” VanderHouwen said in an e-mail. “They give a world view to the issues in the world that affect everyone, even if it is subtle.”
VanderHouwen said he has taken basically every women’s studies course and hopes WSU acknowledges the importance of the department.
Sturgeon feels WSU doesn’t seem to value these departments.
“The most vulnerable college units such as ours, the ones that promote critical thinking and an understanding of structural inequalities from an interdisciplinary perspective, are those that are cut first,” Sturgeon said.
Meuth thinks upper administration doesn’t understand or respect its discipline.
“Over the years we have not been provided a lot of resources,” Meuth said. “Yet, when (administrators) needed to demonstrate that WSU does equality work, we are touted about.”
President Floyd is scheduled to present the proposed budget reduction plans to the Faculty Senate Aug. 18, and there will be a budget forum presented to the university community for review and comments Aug. 26.
The Department of Critical Cultures, Gender and Race Studies already have a plan in place if its department is selected for more budget cuts. They will lift the cap on class sizes to accommodate more students, and streamline the curriculum.
“We are trying to alter our internal structures by dropping some classes with few students,” Meuth said. “We will demonstrate how we are critical to the university.”
These courses analyze systems and it’s based on voices of others not the dominant society.
We teach students a knowledge base and a critical eye to read what society is and question inequalities, Meuth said.
Sources:
Linda Heidenreich 509-335-6883 lheidenr@wsu.edu
Judy Meuth 509-335-4383 meuth@wsu.edu
Noel Sturgeon 509-335-4176 sturgeon@wsu.edu
Alex VanderHouwen kandace.vanderhouwen@email.wsu.edu
