Birx Inconsistent with Status of Humanities Cuts, Despite Concrete Plan Maintained Since February

Kay Bailey

She/Her

Editor-in-Chief

5/1/25

Plymouth State administrators have maintained a detailed, specific plan to cut programs within the humanities since at least February, according to faculty union records obtained by The Clock. The AAUP and SEA/SEIU union presidents sent the email to PSU faculty following a February 21st meeting with University President Donald Birx and Provost Nate Bowditch. According to the email, administrators had already developed a thorough plan to cut the Plymouth State budget that included specific programs to target, in-depth discussions of retrenchment, and a plan to restructure several departments into an “Integrated Liberal Arts Cluster.” 

To be clear, the explicitly named departments were English, History, Communication and Media studies, Political Science, and the HoME program (which consists of majors that do not belong to a department following the cuts made in the 2020-2021 academic year). The Art and Music programs were restructured recently, though they may face additional changes. Chemistry and the Education Doctoral Program have the potential to be deconstructed, but are less of a focus than others.

Birx discussed retrenchment plans in-depth throughout the meeting, not as a possibility but as an inevitability, according to the Febuary union email. Come January 2026, any American Association of University Professors union faculty in the affected departments would receive 18 months of pay. Faculty would then have the choice to leave as soon as their retrenchment is issued, or continue to work for those 18 months. If any faculty should choose to stay for those 18 months, Birx would ask that they assist in creating the Liberal Arts Cluster.

Birx and the Office of Academic Affairs staff have claimed there are no serious plans to cut any humanities departments or its faculty. Birx alleged an error in reporting – prompting uproar against any sort of cuts to humanities programs – in The Clock’s supposed misinterpretation of the February President’s report. “There was never a plan to eliminate the humanities. There still is not,” Birx claimed in a campus-wide email. Similar messaging was relayed through public statements to alumni, social media, and local news organizations.

At a March 7th Student Senate forum, Bowditch also said Birx and the OAA had taken the first step towards securing faculty voices by creating a faculty working group. Jason Neenos, president of the teaching lectures union, pushed back against that assertion. It was the faculty who asked that this plan be postponed from its original implementation set for May, 2025. And it was faculty who requested the creation of a working group, not administration, he said. Up to that point, the working group had not actually been established, though it was shortly after.

Bowditch repeatedly said that the contents of the February meeting with union presidents had been misrepresented. He claimed the administration did not have any plans to target specific programs. “There are at least three different proposed conflicting lists on hypothetical program closures that I’m aware of,” Bowditch told the forum. “We were totally transparent with [the union presidents] about an idea that we have that is not yet a plan.”

Internal records and conversations show the administration’s communications to the campus and broader public have contradicted the reality of their plans in private, however.

In his February meeting, according to union records, Birx said the USNH Board of Trustees will only accept a plan that includes retrenchment. However, in a conversation with The Clock, Birx directly contradicted his prior statements.

“The board has made no requirements for specific faculty or program [cuts],” he said. Birx has clarified that he does not think the university can come up with a 5-year “sustainable” plan for the university and the humanities without cutting faculty. The requirement that PSU retrench is Birx’s, and is not coming from the Board of Trustees, he said.

Birx’s antagonism continued in his attempts to blame faculty for spreading the news of department cuts in the first place. In an email to faculty, Birx retroactively dubbed the February union presidents meeting “confidential,” claiming that any information shared beyond that meeting was improper.

Rebecca Grant, president of the non-tenure track union, said the change in language was a shock. Those meetings have never been confidential, she said.

“I have an obligation to tell people what I know that could detrimentally affect their work,” Grant said. It’s a union president’s responsibility to share what goes on in those meetings with the faculty, especially when the contents directly affect contracts or even entire departments, she added.

Grant shared her disappointment with how the faculty have been framed by the administration as this situation has progressed, most prominently concerning the lack of support from the provost. “I would like to see Nate [Bowditch] be a champion for us,” Grant said.

Birx later denied he had ever called the meeting confidential. “I haven’t said anything about it. You’re telling me for the first time.”

On March 21st and 22nd, Birx, Bowditch, and University System Student Trustee Ethan Dupuis attended the two-day system-wide Board of Trustees meeting to discuss the budget. In the preliminary President’s report, Birx discussed the “recently announced plan for academic program changes.” According to the meeting minutes, Birx described, in detail, what he has claimed is not a full plan. 

“This could include integrating the existing liberal arts majors into a new cluster to educate students across disciplines and support applied clusters and eliminating some liberal arts majors. Humanities and the liberal arts would still be taught but the surrounding administrative structure would be reframed,” he said

Birx was sure to express to the board that any public unrest on campus was the fault of The Clock’s alleged misreporting, and not from any action by the university administration.

Despite his communications with the board, Birx maintains that he did not share a plan at the meeting to restructure the humanities. “There isn’t [a plan]. And there wasn’t one presented. There will be one in June, of course. The only thing that was presented in there was they asked each of the presidents to talk a little bit about what they’re thinking about,” Birx told The Clock. Birx did confirm that while this idea to reform the humanities is not a definite, final plan, it is the only plan at the moment.

Dupuis provided details on exactly what the current plan for a Liberal Arts department would look like, as discussed at the Board of Trustees meeting. “The proposed restructuring of the liberal arts (and Chemistry) involves a two-year exploration of liberal arts disciplines, followed by a third-year Co-Op program designed to integrate students with potential employers. The final year will focus on a narrower, more specialized area of study. This proposal is still in flux, as the working group is refining the specifics related to accreditation and defining the overall structure of the degree,” he said.

The board views this plan as it stands as “a cutting-edge opportunity to be both financially solvent and also ensuring our graduates are ready to meet the market,” Dupuis said. Though the faculty working group still has time to contribute to the plan, it appears that the board’s favor is currently bent, Dupuis speculated.

So far, the working group has held six meetings between March 14th and April 24th, aiming to build an alternative plan for the June BoT meeting. The group comprises two members from the AAUP union (Mark Fischler and Joshua Wakeham), two members from the non-tenure track union (Jason Charrette and Kenneth Logan), and one member from the teaching lectures union (Jessie Chapman).

The working group has sent out six communications on their progress, describing the parameters Birx and Bowditch have laid out for them, the materials and data they have requested, and the barriers they have faced. According to Birx, if nothing changed at PSU in how we operate, by 2033 the university would find itself in a $7.2 million deficit. Birx hopes that whatever the working group can come up with is a better alternative to his own plan.

The working group asked for the following documents to help in developing its own plan: residential life data, faculty attrition data, programmatic reviews data (including recruitment and retention), recruitment and enrollment data, an impact study on the 3-year-degree program, and line-item budget data.

Most of the data was easily accessible, though the study on the three-year bachelor’s degree doesn’t yet exist due to the novelty of the program. The administration has not yet provided the line-item budget information, however. Birx attributed the delay to technical issues, though it is unclear when those issues will be resolved. Communications from the group claim it is crucial to any plan’s formation that the budget data be shared. The working group has not yet proposed an official plan, though they have said they are developing a solution built off of PSU’s preexisting culture and programs.

In the meantime, the administration’s “Integrated Liberal Arts” proposal, which appears to have changed very little since February, seems situated as the BoT’s default – unless the working group can come up with an alternative.

Update: The working group has received a line-item budget from the OAA, not explicitly stated in their official communications but confirmed by a member of the group.