The Texas A&M University System Board of Regents has unanimously voted to require its flagship campus to discontinue 52 minors and certificate programs that it concludes fail to meet newly created enrollment and completion thresholds. The action came despite strong faculty pushback.
Included in the programs facing elimination is the LGBTQ studies minor, which has been singled out for months of criticism by some Texas lawmakers and conservative websites for being a source of indoctrination and a waste of taxpayer money.
The Regents’ resolution directed Texas A&M President Mark Welsh III to “take actions necessary to eliminate” 14 minors and 38 certificates. The resolution said that input on the programs had been received by deans, department heads, and other faculty, but it acknowledged that “the Faculty Senate at Texas A&M University was not adequately consulted in advance on the process for identifying the low-producing minors and certificate programs.”
The resolution also indicated that “the Texas A&M president recommends that the current review process be halted and restarted to obtain input from the Faculty Senate on the structure of the review process.” Nonetheless, it asserted that “the Board of Regents of the System believes sufficient faculty review of Texas A&M University’s process has been present.”
The Regents’s decision comes after weeks of campus controversy and faculty objection to the process conducted by Texas A&M’s Executive Vice President and Provost Alan Sams this semester to identify and inactivate the “low-producing programs.” Many faculty believe that the process was driven by political pressure and precluded meaningful input from them.
In order to not be subject to inactivation, minors had to meet one of the two criteria:
- graduating a minimum of 10 students within the past two years, or
- having a current-year enrollment of at least five students alongside five graduations within the past two years.
To avoid inactivation, undergraduate certificate programs had to meet these criteria:
- have 10 students complete it within the past two years and
- have a current-year enrollment of at least five students alongside five completions within the past two years.
Graduate certificates thresholds required a program have:
- six students complete it within the past two years
- a current-year enrollment of at least three students alongside three completions within the past two years.
The discontinued minors include several in various engineering specialties in addition to the minor in Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Studies. Also included for elimination were certificates in Cultural Competency, Diversity, Performing Social Activism, and Popular Culture in addition to several technical and engineering specialties.
According to The Battalion, Texas A&M’s student newspaper, of the 26 minors failing to meet enrollment thresholds, faculty members did not appeal the inactivation of 10. Sams accepted appeals for 12 minors but denied four others: LGBTQ studies, global health, Asian studies and geophysics.
Of the 44 certificate programs recommended for inactivation, faculty did not appeal 17, Sams denied 21 appeals, and he retained six.
Faculty criticized the process that was used for the program reviews, arguing that it was based on faulty information, ignored some relevant data and would not result in any meaningful savings. They also said they had been excluded from any kind of meaningful input.
“This has never happened before,” said Angie Hill Price, a professor and speaker of A&M’s Faculty Senate, according to The Texas Tribune. “We have no precedent for a board to decide [to end academic programs] over the wishes of faculty and the president which they deemed low-performing.”
The regents’ action was quickly praised by State Senator Brandon Creighton (R–Conroe), chair of the Texas Senate Education Committee. “Proud to see the reforms we passed in the Texas Senate making a real impact at Texas A&M,” he posted on X. “More bold reforms are coming for higher ed in the 89th session.”
Texas Scorecard, a conservative website that’s often covered what it regards as the university’s liberal agenda, described the board’s decision this way: “the Board of Regents of Texas A&M University System pushed back against ‘shared governance’ with woke faculty members.”
The regents’ action this week is not the end of the story. As part of its resolution, it also directed “the presidents of other System institutions to promptly initiate a review of minors and certificate programs to identify any low-producing programs that may require elimination.”
In addition, in what faculty will understandably perceive as a potential threat to shared governance, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick has directed the Texas Senate Higher Education Committee to “review and analyze the structures and governance in higher education, focusing on the role of ‘faculty senates,’ and like groups, in representing faculty interests to higher education institution administrations.”
Patrick also wants the committee to “make recommendations to establish guidelines for the role and representation of faculty by ‘faculty senates,’ and like groups, at higher education institutions in Texas.” That request could lead to a weakening of the role of those bodies in university decision-making, an outcome that’s taken place at other institutions recently.