Students and Admin Clash Over Proposed Cuts

Kay Bailey

She/Her

Editor-in-Chief

3/7/25

Since news broke surrounding the potential cuts to PSU’s humanities programs, a symptom of the Board of Trustees request for a 2% budget cut and plan to make the university more “sustainable” long-term, campus response has been best shown through attendance at the PSU Faculty meeting Wednesday afternoon, and a Student Forum Friday night hosted by Plymouth State Student Senate.

At Friday’s student forum, PSSS Parlementarian Millie Cejka hoped that whereas Wednesday night’s discussion was an airing of grievances on the proposed plan, tonight would be an opportunity for productive conversation on what cuts could be made in place of a large humanities slash. University President Donald Birx was not able to make this student-led forum, however Provost Nate Bowditch attended and responded to questions posed by student and faculty.

Most of the sentiments emphasized the desire to retain our current faculty and protect the humanities programs on campus. “If there is an argument that the humanities make a difference, it’s all of y’all, and y’all have harnessed that power,” said Nic Helms, an English professor and Program Coordinator. “I entered the faculty meeting Wednesday, not sure how I could finish this week, and y’all were absolutely my second wind for the day, the week, the semester, for my fucking career in Plymouth. So thank you.” 

In response to a handful of students’ frustration with the lack of communication from the administration, Bowditch apologized several times for the lapse in clarity. He said that the administration values campus input– a sentiment iterated both at this meeting and in a message sent out to the campus through the PSU Instagram Friday morning– which drove them in January to invite faculty to the table to talk about the necessary budget cuts.

Jason Neenos, President of the Teaching Lectures Union, was quick to correct Bowditch. “It wasn’t the leadership that asked to meet with faculty. It was the faculty asking to meet with leadership,” he said. “It was the faculty asking to be included. I believe in giving credit where credit is due, and your statement was false.”

“My concern,” Neenos continued, “is that the administration doesn’t want to work collaboratively with the faculty and the students.”

Neenos was followed by Scott Coykendall, a Communication and Media Studies Professor who stressed how “horribly mismanaged” this issue has been thus far in regard to administrative support for the faculty. “It’s been so difficult to do our jobs. It has sort of seeped into us that we are the programs that are the dead weight of the university.” Coykendall said his spirit has been lifted, though,  by Friday’s Student Senate meeting and Wednesday‘s faculty meeting.

Throughout the meeting, Bowditch claimed that the plan to cut the humanities was not a concrete one, but more so an idea that was being floated around in talks with administration and faculty. He said that the narrative surrounding the plan after it left a union meeting had been severely exaggerated and misconstrued. 

Sarah Parish, an Art History Professor, rebuked Bowditch’s downplay by noting the active talks of retrenchment at the most recent American Association of University Professors union meeting. 

Rebecca Grant, an English Professor and President of the full-time non-tenure track faculty union, disagreed with Bowditch’s accusation of misrepresenting the meeting with union representatives. Grant remembered the threat against the humanities as very real coming out of that meeting, and said she felt surprised by how specific the targeted departments were.

“I’ve been doing this for a little while, and I’ll tell you that I work really hard to be transparent with my members. In no way would I ever want to make my colleagues that I care so deeply about scared. I would never do that,” she said. “And so when you said that union presidents left that meeting and misrepresented what happened in that meeting, I was shocked to hear you say that.” 

Bowditch claimed that he did not directly say that it was the union leaders who misrepresented the meeting. Still, Bowditch reinforced the idea that the idea to cut the humanities has been misrepresented, though without placing the blame onto any one party. 

Wednesday’s Faculty meeting, a monthly meeting typically including faculty, staff, Bowditch, and Birx, was suddenly joined by roughly 50 students on campus looking for more clarity on how a humanities program-dissolve would be implemented. Birx attended the meeting virtually from Washington, D.C., over Zoom.

The importance that the humanities professors have had on personal enrollment and retainment, both in and out of the discipline, rose as the overarching narrative for students who spoke to Birx and the room.

“This is a plan to kill the school,” Jonathan Picard, a sophmore Interdisciplinary Studies major, said in response to the proposed cuts. Picard said every element of his make-your-own major degree is pulled from humanities as well. Matthew Cheney, the director of IDS, later agreed with this idea, emphasizing that humanities are a crucial part of the IDS department.

Part of that plan, Birx described, should be making up the gaps in enrollment that traditional students do not cover. “Traditional students are not sufficient to sustain some of our majors in their current form,” Birx said.

Brady Lyons, a junior Communication and Media major, wondered what could be next to go at a post-humanities PSU. “What would be next?” he asked. 

Ethan Dupuis, Political Science and History double major and USNH Student Trustee, questioned Birx on the selection process for targeting the humanities specifically. Megan Hall, a junior English major, had similar concerns on how the cuts would be applied. “It feels like this is a specifically targeted attack toward liberal arts,” Hall said.

Birx attributed the focus to the student-to-faculty ratio within the humanities, calling it a simple approach. “It’s looking at what is attracting, and of interest to, students as they come in.”

This was rebutted by Rebecca Noel, History, Social Studies, and Education professor and program coordinator. Noel saw the threats as an ideological attack, rejecting Birx’s earlier statements that humanities were unsustainable. “The numbers don’t add up…we are not the most expensive to run. We are paid the least, and we have almost no equipment cost,” Noel said. Kelsie Eckert, a professor and program coordinator for Social Studies Education, stressed a need for more administrative pushback against legislative narratives degrading humanities.

Students are currently planning to protest the threat of humanities cuts on Tuesday, March 11 outside of the Hartman Union Building. An organizer of the protest said students who want to participate in the protest should gather around the panther statue on the Alumni Green at 11:30am, wearing red and purple to show support for their humanities faculty.