Wonderful Letter to the Editor from Mark Harf, a Utica resident who has held executive leadership positions across multiple sectors in business, but has no specific connection to Utica University other than being a well-informed and concerned citizen of the larger Utica community.
"There does not appear to be an official Utica University space for local Utica-Rome citizen comment on the recent proposed major program cuts — yet, the university and Mohawk Valley are clearly linked.
Elimination of several of the Utica University majors in a vacuum, especially those in the liberal arts (chemistry, sociology and anthropology, philosophy, Spanish, etc., which follow a string of earlier program eliminations like fine arts), will weaken Utica University in the long term. It was disheartening to read about this proposal unaccompanied by a clear vision or specifics as to what great new things and programs the college is to create and become in the future as it grows into its university status."
"Science and STEM are critical to the region moving forward. It is unclear how a university can have science excellence without a robust set of science majors including chemistry, especially if a robust health sciences set of offerings co exists and is potentially slated to grow. It is also interesting to note that a major cannabis testing lab recently indicated intent to locate to Utica concurrently mentioning interest in chemistry graduates;
Given globalization, national, and regional demographics, how does a university produce healthcare, business, and education leaders who didn’t have the option to double major in an important second language like Spanish (or a few other languages)?;
How does a university produce strong thinkers in an age of artificial intelligence, which will fundamentally remove current work that gets done in areas like business, healthcare, and other fields without majors like philosophy that teach students how to think as opposed to how to do a job for a given point in time that may not exist in the future? Too narrowly trained, students can potentially graduate with vocationally based degrees that are already on their way to becoming obsolete;
If three majors make up half of enrollment what is the root cause of this situation and what is the right path forward to create more diverse recruitment and enrollment breadth in the context and consideration of student interests, external needs, and a robust university strategic plan, vision, mission, and values. As a university, why not create pathways like an accelerated bachelor’s program in philosophy or chemistry/MBA program (or other combinations) that create great thinkers and business leaders.
The changes that were recently proposed require a lot more dialogue and seem on the surface to be short-sighted."
"Although there are profound changes taking place in higher education and the economy, rushing to cut traditional liberal arts majors without clear specifics about what will differentiate the college and its graduates in the future, is a proposal that needs a lot more work. It would be better left to successive leaders at the school with broader engagement across the college and deeper dialogue around what it will mean to be a Utica graduate, what future growth areas the college will pursue so that its change to university status was not one in name only, and how to best have core liberal arts majors co-exist in an environment where they may appear on the surface to be less relevant."
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