No reprieve for Consumer Studies Department

Provost endorses shutdown proposal

by Sarah R. Buchholz, Chronicle staff

fter more than a year of campus debate and despite a Faculty Senate vote to restore the department, the administration has decided to close the Department of Consumer Studies. The department houses two majors, Apparel Marketing and Family and Consumer Sciences, and has four tenure-track faculty plus one Outreach faculty member, approximately 150 undergraduate students and two remaining graduate students.

     Apparel Marketing will be eliminated altogether, and Family and Consumer Sciences will now be housed in Resource Economics, as a concentration in that major.
Admissions to the undergraduate program have been suspended since fall 2000, so the remaining 112 Apparel Marketing students, who were enrolled before then, will have completed their course work in the major by the end of next semester. Head of Consumer Studies Sheila Mammen and associate professor M.J. Alhabeeb will move to Resource Economics, associate professor Susan Michelman will join Hotel, Restaurant and Travel Administration, and professor Patricia Warner will transfer to Theater, according to Mammen. Extension assistant professor Shirley Mietlicki, who directs the 4-H Youth and Family Extension Program, will continue in that role, but will be "without a teaching appointment," Mammen said. Arrangements are being made to place the department's two clerical staff members elsewhere on campus, she said.

     "It is very unfortunate, and I am very sorry this has happened," Mammen said of the decision to close the department.

     "Certainly, this was not an easy or a happy decision, but in my judgment, it represents the best decision for the University," said interim Senior Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs and Provost Charlena Seymour. "I appreciate the dedication of the department's faculty and students throughout a process that was very difficult for them."

     "Our heart goes out to the faculty, alumnae and students who have lost their disciplinary home," said Faculty Senate secretary Ernest May. "In the final analysis, the Consumer Studies problem is a budgetary problem. Regrettably, there seems to be no prospect at all for the institution to produce sufficient budgetary resources to restore the department. The overall budgetary situation for the state and for the campus remains bleak."

     In a Sept. 13 memo to the Faculty Senate's Rules Committee, Seymour responded to a number of resolutions regarding Consumer Studies by the senate from its last meeting of the 2000-2001 academic year, including requests for the administration to renew and restore the department and to collaborate with the senate in revising the current procedures for terminating departments. Seymour said the quality of the department was not an issue in closing it, rather the issue was budgetary. The department had lost faculty over time in a college that has 32 fewer faculty positions than it did in 1990, and money to replace them would have to come from other essential areas.

     "Retirement incentive programs and repeated budget reductions have put every school and college - and every department - in the position of struggling to maintain quality in the face of ongoing losses of faculty," Seymour wrote. "We are now down some 260 base faculty positions since 1990. There is simply nowhere to go on campus to find 'surplus' faculty resources that could be applied to solve Consumer Studies' problem.

     "In looking at this situation, it has become clear to me that the question is not whether we think closing Consumer Studies is a good idea. The question is whether, under the circumstances, we can reasonably achieve a different outcome."

     In response to senate concerns that the procedure for closing a department needs to be reconsidered, Seymour concurred.

     "A full-scale program review, designed to shift resources from some departments to others, demands a clear set of priorities, broad discussion and consultation, and our best thinking as to what kinds of evidence should matter," she wrote. "None of these exist today. I have, however, asked a group of Deans, department heads and faculty to propose some ideas as to how we might confront these issues, and I am committed to working with the Academic Priorities Council and others to arrive at a sensible approach to program evaluation that can earn the support of the campus."

     "The role of the Senate's Academic Priorities Council needs to be expanded to provide for regular reviews of vulnerable departments, 'early warnings,' and alternative solutions such as a process for mergers," May said. "[And] additional action needs to be taken so that this most unfortunate situation never repeats. Departments should be provided the presumption that their faculty vacancies will be filled promptly. The Spring 2001 faculty numbers must mark the bottom of the decline in overall faculty numbers. The central administration, deans, and faculty must collaborate to find a better way to shape the future of the institution."