Which Department Is the Most Unnecessary?

~ Clarissa

Let’s have fun with this, people.

Who can guess which was the first department at my university to get slated for elimination as unnecessary?

Let’s see how well you understand neoliberal bureaucrats.

Just to make it easier, it’s not mine.

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Published by Clarissa

41 thoughts on “Which Department Is the Most Unnecessary?”

      1. Perhaps, like me, this commenter misread your post as asking which department was immediately marked as safe.

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      2. I guessed these departments because you frequently point out the irony of all the woke professors supporting DEI even though it means cutting jobs and programs. So I figured it was a case of woke profs supporting what’s not in their best interests, ultimately resulting in their departments’ eliminations.

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  2. “first department at my university to get slated for elimination as unnecessary?”

    I’m of two minds…

    One, classic neoliberalism would probably cut something in the humanities but I dont’ know what humanities programs you have.

    Modern neoliberliasm, with its scorched earth tactics is more likely to cut something practical that could lead to employment so I’m thinking something STEM.

    I’m thinking of something I read about the late Roman empire, some decision maker is asked which should get priority in shipping from Africa, grain to make bread and feed people or the sand used in the arenas. There wasn’t a real possibility to send both. The answer was roughly “Send sand, we need to take people’s minds off their problems.”

    So I’m thinking humanities which generate more neoliberal thought are probably safer than STEM programs which deal with hard, cold, reality.

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    1. Very good. Plus, which department fails the most people WHO CANNOT BE FAILED?

      If you, folks, could read the absolutely insulting language in which the document is written. “The Physis program has a minimal impact on student achievement and excellence.” Bloody sick bastards.

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  3. I would say it is likely either literature departments (Specifically those on things like Shakespeare, or the old masterpieces.) Or potentially history departments, especially those that talk about the glory days of Europe.

    • – W

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      2. Your soon to be former university is absolute shit. Physics is the foundation of pretty much any hard science, most of modern chemistry was actually created by physicists; before it was just alchemy.

        This would have been ny absolute last guess. Wow.

        Is this making the news anywhere? Seems very scandalous to me.

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        1. The union is telling us not to talk to the press. Once I come back from Germany, I’ll infiltrate the union and find out why.

          But yes, I’m with you that this absolutely sucks ass.

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          1. As a non-academic physicist, this isn’t too surprising. A lot of the hard, important problems in physics (IMO) are actually being worked on in engineering departments.

            That being said, I love physics, loved learning it in college, and feel sad that fewer young people will have access to physics departments.

            -YZ

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        2. Physics programs have been cut at a bunch of colleges and universities in the past. Their basic courses are frequently required for all sorts of other majors, but there usually aren’t many students majoring in Physics. The administrators see few majors and decide there’s no real student interest, so they cut the program and plan to hire some adjuncts or perhaps one or two full time lecturers to teach just the basic courses that the other programs need.

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        3. Spoken with an arrogance of a true physicist. Mendeleev, Lavoisier, Le Chatelier, Lewis, Werner, Fischer (and many others) would like a word with you. I used to think like you, but at some point I had to eat a lot of humble pie and realize how wrong I was. I believe physics is important and physics departments should not be eliminated. And perhaps if physicists were a smidge less arrogant they may not be the first on the firing line (but second perhaps). Because if everything is physics, perhaps we don’t need it around as it will still be contained in the other science and engineering departments 😉

          Signed: a former physicist turned chemist (and I know they are coming for us too, eventually)

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          1. Soon enough there will be robots placed on all campuses that will accept payments and hand out diplomas instead. No need for the whole rigmarole of classes and books. And the professors will be free to stay as bloody remote as they want.

            I had another conversation today with a faculty member who believes that working 3 days a week on a full-time appointment is too much and was insisting on two days. To say that we don’t deserve what’s coming to us would be dishonest.

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            1. One of my colleagues refuses to teach large service courses (like gen chem) because he is too important (has a $1 million grant). The other one refuses because he is a physicist not a chemist (I guess that’s where “everything is physics” does not apply) and could not possibly teach the course. In the meantime, the department is hiring more and more non tenure track faculty to cover these courses. Our non tenure track colleagues have twice the teaching load for half the pay and no expensive lab equipment and utility bills to pay for the lab space. You don’t have to be a genius to understand this will not end well.

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              1. You get it. People behave with such extraordinary entitlement that one doesn’t know how to get them see where this leads. Maybe it’s human nature but it makes me despair.

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            2. “believes that working 3 days a week on a full-time appointment is too much and was insisting on two days”

              Try zero days and a zero-time appointment? Will that work their hectice schedule?

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              1. I’ve encountered this, in the academic/bureaucrat class– an underlying attitude of “I’m smart, I got a degree: I deserve to be paid just for existing.”

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              2. She drove the program into the ground by constantly canceling class, not submitting the final grades on time (which creates big issues for financial aid), and endlessly complaining that she’s underpaid. I killed myself to save this program, and I did. But I’m powerless to do anything if the actual faculty is sabotaging herself.

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      1. Kind of surprised that you didn’t mention Engineering. But coldly and rationally, I would vote for losing every department ending in “studies” ;-D

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        1. Engineering is considered to be highly practical. They will gut science departments (chemistry, physics, math) before touching engineering. At my university, engineering program is actually growing and not by a small amount.

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          1. I wouldn’t look at this in terms of what’s practical. We could gut our administrative apparatus with it’s huge DEI component. They would save much more money than eliminating Physics. But there’s exactly zero administrative positions being eliminated.

            This isn’t about money or practical considerations. Our Chancellor pretty much destroyed admissions and recruitment. Enrollments dropped. Nobody cares. This dude’s housing allowance is larger than a median salary. Why does he get a housing allowance on top of his salary? The rest of us pay for housing out of our salaries. How’s that practical? He’s a nobody, a no-name young deanlet from California. Why are we paying all that money, a new Jeep, tons of other expenses on top of his $350K salary?

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              1. My bet’s still on mathematics.

                Following your reasoning for physics, that “too many of the wrong people fail, and not very many *major* in this subject, so we will hire adjuncts to teach the basic courses…”

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              2. I would totally go with it, too, but the math department is smart. They added “statistics” to its name and are now doing big data and all that. I think this will save them. Otherwise, you are right, they’d be gone. The faculty are tragically undiverse, too. White and Asian men, which is the absolute limit.

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          2. I am glad to hear that about Engineering, but bothered about losing Maths and Sciences. Actually the great gothic cathedrals were engineered with a few geometric rules.

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  7. If this stuff happens in every public university (it will), we will functionally not have public universities anymore. Only the rich will be able to receive a true education.

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    1. it’s definitely coming for all of us. Perhaps some large public universities will weather this better than the smaller ones but no university will be untouched.

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    2. “Only the rich will be able to receive a true education”

      I think that’s been the plan for some time now…. (a bipartisan effort — the idea that one or the other party isn’t on board with the destruction of middle America needs to die the undignified death it deserves).

      Education and connections for the fail children of the elite…. drugs and ‘choice’ for everybody else.

      Extremely dystopian.

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