EJ JACOBS
Life & Arts Editor
DAN QUAGLIANA
News Editor
Students at Fredonia have made a name for themselves by sharing their opinions on the recent program discontinuations. Mackenzie White, a senior ceramics major, is one among many who have added to the ongoing discussion.
White, who will graduate in December, did not originally start in that major. Along with many others who have been interviewed this semester, White started her SUNY Fredonia career as an animation illustration major.
“Originally I had gone for the hopes of animation illustration, and this is one of the only schools that offers that,” she said. “I also knew that they had a really strong art program regardless, so I really wanted to go. So when I came here, I took [a] ceramics class, and I fell in love with it and switch[ed] my major.”
When asked if she regrets choosing Fredonia with its current campus climate, she said, “I definitely don’t regret choosing Fredonia. I wanted to go to a smaller school and I really liked the area.”
When Fredonia was incorporated into SUNY, it exclusively focused on producing teachers with education degrees. Now, it includes 79 different undergraduate degrees, although that number will soon be decreased by 13 due to program discontinuations.
“I’m happy that I’m really close to [finishing] my degree because I’m still getting mostly the full experience of the program,” White said. “None of us really know … what classes will be cut. So I’m happy to be graduating at the time that I am.”
She said that she doesn’t “know if it will really matter” if having a degree in a non-existent major will affect her chances of getting a job after graduation.
“I still have the degree and there was the program happening and it was an accredited program,” she explained. “My main concern, really, is just kind of seeing down the line, if there’s more cuts in other places and everything else because there have been other schools that have cut their ceramics programs. So I feel like finding a job might be a little hard [because of that].”
White noted that the students are handling the program cuts “really well … We’re being really supportive.” But she said that the professors are “worried about losing their jobs.”
She also noticed how Fredonia seems to be “getting rid of their art programs and switching to more STEM classes,” but thinks that students won’t come to Fredonia for those programs because “there’s a lot of other schools in the area that offer better STEM classes than what Fredonia is able to [have], especially with the new nursing program that they’re bringing in. I feel like if most people want to go to [school for] nursing, they’re going to go somewhere in Buffalo.”
Considering over 500 students are currently enrolled in the University at Buffalo’s nursing program, this judgment may not be without its evidence.
Regarding the purported switch to STEM classes, White finds it “sad that Fredonia is trying to find a new identity, instead of keeping the one that they are known for.”