Liberal Arts Town Hall: Highlights and Analysis
By: Aurora Biggers
Photographed by Jen Wright
NEWBERG, Ore.—On Friday, the cultural enterprise deans held a town hall meeting in Bauman to address recent changes to the liberal arts and humanities programs. The meeting, which lasted over two hours, was held to “create space for dialogue” between students and faculty.
Bauman had a maximum capacity of 100, and as the meeting started, Dr. Clair, executive dean, said the auditorium’s capacity was “capping out.” Still, some students and faculty were unable to attend. If you missed the town hall or had to leave early, we’ve got you covered. Here are some highlights, takeaways, and questions we still have:
Highlights:
After a recent announcement that significant changes were being made to the university’s academic portfolio, most of which applied to liberal art and humanities programs, students expressed frustration over the severe cuts made to the arts. In the following days, Dr. Favale, dean of humanities, and Clair arranged an impromptu Zoom town hall on Feb. 9 about the changes. Only a handful of students attended, and the deans invited students to a second in-person town hall with the provost, Andrea Scott.
Drs. Favale and Clair and Provost Scott photographed by Jen Wright.
After Dr. Clair and Dr. Favale opened the meeting to student questions, one student asked the deans if they felt that GFU’s higher leadership was out of touch with the people their decisions affect. This was a common concern among students in attendance, many of whom also asked why these changes were not discussed more transparently with the student body prior to their announcement. The provost and Clair repeatedly assured students that the university was making their decisions with the “best in mind” for students and the institution. A major factor they cited were recent trends in student enrollment: “80 percent of students are in 10 majors,” Clair said. The precise breakdown is that eight of those majors with the high concentration are professional programs. Engineering and computer science, for instance, account for 18 percent of the student body, while nursing accounts for 13 percent. The only liberal arts programs in the ten majors Clair noted are English and psychology.
In the prior town hall, Clair also shared that the University’s business plan runs on a 70/30 model—70 percent of tuition from each major goes back to the university to keep “the lights on,” as he put it. Thirty percent goes back to the majors to cover their costs. If a major, theatre for example, doesn’t receive a high enough enrollment for the year, then their 30 percent remainder won’t cover faculty salaries or other expenses.
The second concern voiced by students was faculty cuts, particularly the loss of Cristi Miles as a theatre faculty member. Students asked that Miles be allowed to stay one more year, “to give freshmen and sophomores the experience they were promised,” one theatre student said. Miles teaches two core courses in the theatre department, which is moving to a minor-only program. The theatre director, Rhett Luedtke, will teach the courses next year. Alongside this plea, students raised the fact of the theater department’s recent critical acclaim, and questioned why, despite winning seven regional awards in the last year, the theater major had been deemed “unnecessary” by the administration.
Student asking questions photographed by Jen Wright.
“Creativity thrives within limits,” Favale said, “I think theatre will continue to thrive here. Whatever resources I have control over, I’m going to give to your programs because I care about them. They matter.”
It was unclear how lowering University costs will be accomplished in spite of the budget cuts to theater productions, when the majority of the faculty will still be retained.Clair was careful addressing this question, simply saying that fewer courses equaled less expenses. Faculty salary is often determined by the number of courses the faculty member teaches. By reducing course loads, the University could potentially save money by reducing faculty salaries.
Despite promises that programs affected by the University’s announcement will continue in vibrancy for the next four years, as students graduate out, some students expressed skepticism. Skylar Rae, a senior double-majoring in theatre and entrepreneurship, said during the town hall that she felt the university lied to her. She said that when her entrepreneurship major was eliminated, the university said it would be taught out and none of her classes would change; yet she says several of her courses were eliminated, and she had to piece together a make-shift major in order to receive her degree. She said that her major was significantly changed and diminished through this process. Rae also added that her comments aimed to warn younger students in programs recently slated for elimination who were told their program would not be diminished, “I don’t believe you.” Favale’s response to Rae: “We’re not lying. That won’t happen.” Favale said they will ensure the major is taught out.
After the first hour, Scott left, citing prior engagements, and left Clair and Favale to field questions. Within the next 30 minutes, students raising questions or comments began to express frustration over the lack of satisfying responses. “I wish I could pull back the curtain and let you see how hard it has been, not only for everyone, for you, but also for administrators. I think we’ve been in panic mode. How do we keep the ship afloat?” Favale told students. “I ask you to have a little bit of humility and a little bit of charity.”
Students lined up to ask questions photographed by Jen Wright.
The meeting took a turn when one student told Favale and Clair, “you aren’t fulfilling your promise,” referring to the quality of education at GFU and alleged that GFU is eliminating arts programs to eliminate the LGBTQIA students on campus. “It’s simply not accurate, and I think actually uncharitable, to accuse us of failing a promise,” Favale responded, “The promise is the teach-out, that we will teach the courses that you enrolled in.” In regards to questions about why the arts programs aren’t as advertised, Favale said that wasn’t within her or Clair’s purview. She added that GFU billboards rarely feature specific programs, to which several students shouted that they do.“Guys, calm down. I know you’re angry, but I am a human being. You are not speaking to me respectfully,” Favale responded. The situation escalated as several students shouted back, “We’re human too.” Favale left shortly after, saying she needed to get home to her family.
For the remaining 50 minutes, Clair was the lone university representative on the stage, eventually concluding the town hall at 6:20 p.m. Clair invited students to reach out to him with further questions.
So after an exhausting town hall, what were our takeaways and remaining questions?
Takeaways and questions:
This is where we may editorialize a little.
One issue we’re concerned about is the set-up and optics for these announcements. As one student put it, is the higher leadership, i.e. the board, out of touch with the people it affects?
Students aside, let’s look at the faculty. Favale, formerly the dean of the honors program, was recently handed her position, following her maternity leave. We know these decisions have been coming down the pipeline, so to speak, for a while, so the timing strikes us as less-than-coincidental. The university promoted Clair out of the position and passed it to Favale, knowing they were handing her a college with massive cuts. This smells a little too strongly of institutional misogyny. Favale has become a sympathetic character through this.
Favale says she felt like “the dean of a sinking ship on fire” when she was informed that all of the majors in her college, aside from English, were being reorganized. Why is Favale taking so much heat, while the board and Clair sit looking pretty?
Not unrelated is the position of our new provost. Scott was hired over the summer, and initially had concerns about joining GFU because of prior racism within the institution. Is it possible GFU hired Scott because it’s a good story for them? GFU may be using Scott, a Black woman, to cover their institutional racism and take the fall for the massive cuts being made. In interviews with The Crescent, Scott has repeatedly noted that many of the decisions that are coming from her office were already made prior to her hiring; yet, we’ve noticed she’s taking the brunt of the blowback. Where is the board in all of this?
Conversely, the town hall didn’t benefit from the provost leaving after the first hour. The upshot? It seems like the provost is asking her faculty to carry the load of her decisions, just as the board is passing the proverbial buck to her. The point when frustration reached a peak at the town hall was when the provost left and there was no longer anyone qualified to answer students’ or press questions.
Another question we’re left with is whether the “students vote with their feet” adage is accurate? While the provost says this is an issue of what programs are desirable and receiving the most tuition, “students vote with their feet,” she repeatedly said, there is a factor of how departments are run and the nature of the courses taught. The university doesn’t allot higher funding to certain departments. Clair says one reason for the engineering department’s success at the university is that they created their own board outside of GFU. This board covers extra costs that the department incurs. The engineering department is also a “lean machine,” Clair said. The engineering department runs on 12 faculty for their approximately 300 students. For reference, he said the Christian ministries department had 14 faculty members (prior to last year’s cuts) for significantly fewer students. Yet, according to other faculty members, the religion department had a sizable general education load on top of their major and minor courses. The engineering department faculty, however, do not teach general education courses and few teach within the LIBA program.
What we’re hearing here is that some departments are successful not just because of enrollment rates, enrollment may not even be as significant of a factor as Scott says, but because they have outside financial support and the nature of their concentration allows one professor to teach larger lecture-size courses. Rather than prioritizing enrollment, is the university prioritizing a particular teaching style and rewarding the departments that “hustle” independently to keep themselves running?
Finally, students pointed out during the town hall that the University maintains that these decisions were made due to a variety of factors, but the only factor they’ve stated is financial—something The Crescent has been keeping its eye on, too. One theory is that many of the programs cut will affect LGBTQIA students and supporting faculty. Clair's response: “It’s simply not true that there’s a vendetta against the LGBTQ community on campus.” It should be noted, though, that GFU has a statement outlining their position as unsupportive toward LGBTQIA students, and they retain a Title IX exemption allowing them to discriminate against transgender students.
In The Crescent’s last article on the academic changes, we noted that the University said students were asked for input prior to the decisions, but our investigation revealed that no students were formally asked. Now that these town halls are taking place to give students space to vocalize their opinions, we have to ask, would student input have changed the decisions? According to Clair, “probably not.”
On Friday, there will be a follow-up Zoom meeting with Clair, which students can attend to share “thoughts, responses, more questions” and “[their] own ideas about moving the liberal arts into the future together at George Fox.”
Article updated 4 March 2021