After completing review processes and fine-tuning curricula, three programs suspended under the “Pathways” plan are active this semester after reinstatement in May.
The physics undergraduate program and the graduate programs in music therapy and music performance return with varying enrollments. Physics has 11 students, music performance has 10 and music therapy technically has no graduate students doing academic coursework on campus – although two are still working on their final theses in conjunction with Loyola faculty.
Before “Pathways,” the physics department had 26 students enrolled, music performance had nine and music therapy had five.
“Pathways” suspended seven programs, citing low enrollment in all cases. The plan didn’t eliminate any tenured or tenure-track professors in the three programs.
The Office of the Provost later gave faculty in the suspended programs a chance to begin to reinstate their programs after proving them to be worthy ventures. Programs up for reinstatement follow the same trajectory as a new program would. The process involves a departmental consensus, followed by approval from the college’s dean, the University Courses and Curriculum Committee, the Standing Council for Academic Planning, the provost and the Board of Trustees.
The suspensions proved to be both helpful and detrimental to the programs. They had the opportunity to revive themselves, but – in the case of physics and music therapy – suffered in enrollment.
These departments went through the process to prove their programs are viable, which meant altering curricula and starting new courses. For Anthony Decuir, professor and associate dean of the College of Music, the suspension presented a unique prospect.
“We took it as an opportunity to do some needed tinkering and revisions to the program,” he said. “These were changes we were looking at for a number of years to make the program a lot more user-friendly.”
A big change included the restructuring of the school’s graduate committees for students, making them more specific to individual students’ area of study.
The revised physics program includes pre-health and pre-engineering programs and a liberal arts physics track – a broader approach to physics for those simply seeking technical backgrounds.
“We’re hopeful that now we’re at a place to really recruit for next year,” said Martin McHugh, physics department chairman and associate professor. “We have all these new programs.”
The suspension also had a hand in hindering enrollment. For some, the reinstatement was welcome but untimely.
“The program wasn’t unsuspended until May. By then, students already made decisions to go to other institutions,” said Victoria Vega, College of Music associate professor, in the music therapy program. “It really squashed the momentum of the program.”
McHugh agrees.
“Even though we’re reinstated, since it happened in May, it was sort of late in the whole process,” he said.
For physics, the suspension proved to be more burdensome than helpful, said McHugh.
“We’ve talked about this a lot. We felt like, at the end of it – what purpose did it serve?” he said. “We were still here, so they didn’t save any money by saving our salaries or anything like that. We basically just lost our students.”
But according to Vega, the outcome could’ve been worse.
“I’m so relieved (the suspension) was one year,” she said. “Once the word is out that we don’t have a graduate program, it falls off people’s radar. Once it falls off the radar, it’s more problematic to recruit students.”
Lauren LaBorde can be reached at
