The Board of Trustees announced that 13 of 15 proposed majors will be sunset in a letter and 171-page report shared with the campus on Thursday, Feb. 23.

After their annual board meeting on Friday, Feb. 17, Chairperson Bob Brvenik ‘77 announced through a letter that the board would need to deliberate before announcing their final decisions the week of Feb. 24.

According to the most recent letter penned by Brvenik, the recommendation to sunset the B.S. in Chemistry and B.A. in Physics were withdrawn based on an appeal report written by their respective departments.

“The President withdrew her recommendation to sunset [Chemistry] based on the rationale provided in the department’s case statement,” the report included with the letter detailed. “The Board concurred with the President’s decision to withdraw her recommendation.”

The following majors will be sunset: B.S. in Criminal Justice (online), B.S. in Fraud and Financial Crime Investigation, B.A. in Geoscience, B.S. in Geoscience, B.S. in Healthcare Management (campus and online), B.A. in International Studies, B.S. in Nutrition, B.A. in Philosophy, B.B.A in Public Relations and Marketing, B.A. in Sociology and Anthropology, B.A. in Spanish and B.S. in Therapeutic Recreation.

“This report is reflective of the data and analysis underlying the President’s recommendations, as well as the substantial and overwhelmingly constructive input we received from the University community in response to those recommendations,” Brvenik said in the letter. “The University will continue to offer a very broad selection of majors, and our students will continue to benefit from substantive and varied learning opportunities through our General Education program.”

The 171 page report, which has been shared with faculty, students and staff, contains rationale from the trustees as well as appeal cases made by departments.

Out of the 15 programs slated for sunset, five academic degree programs did not submit an appeal and each was sunset: B.S. in Criminal Justice (online), B.S. in Healthcare Management (campus delivery), B.S. in Healthcare Management (online), B.S. in Nutrition and B.A. in Spanish.

The report also contains quadrant analyses and data tables that represent nine years of Utica University enrollment information, which were used by the taskforce prior to Dec. 1 for President Laura Casamento and Provost Todd Pfannestiel to review.

Section VIII of the report details the trustee’s rationale behind their final decisions, which were deliberated on Feb. 16. with the school deans in attendance to present case statements.

“At this meeting, each school dean was invited to present to the Board a summary of the case statements as well as any other information each believed was crucial to the Board’s deliberations,” the report said. “Board members had the opportunity to ask the deans questions regarding the programs under consideration.”

The decisions made by the board will be in effect during the add-drop period of the Fall 2023 semester.

“The Board further requires that the University develop a process to assess on a continuous basis the relevance and curricular cohesiveness of all credentials,” the report said. “The institution’s graduate programs should also be included in this process.”

The Tangerine is working on a followup story on this issue.