VICTOR SCHMITT-BUSH
Special to the Leader
This Fall marks Fredonia’s second highest undergraduate enrollment in its almost two century legacy. Out of 191 years, this was “the first time since the 2014-2015 academic year that the campus enrolled more than 1,000 first-year students,” according to Fredonia’s campus report today.
Dean of Liberal Arts and Sciences Joseph “Andy” Karafa attributes much of the campus’ success in student enrollment to the “significant change in admission processes.”
“It’s similar to when you’re trying to do a faculty search,” Karafa explained. “We want to make an offer to them before other schools do, and we want to snag the best candidates we can. I think the same thing is happening here. I think if we outreach to those students sooner than other schools do, then they have that sense of commitment sooner.”
“Consequently, I think that’s what we’re seeing,” he added. “And there are a lot of departments that have done more outreach — you have students who are receiving scholarships, you have department chairs and other folks sending them letters saying, ‘Hey, you’ve got this scholarship! Congratulations! We look forward to seeing you! — so there’s a lot more of that personal touch going on.”
Preemptive admission techniques are certainly working, but the school has also sought to increase student interest via the integration of some departments with others too. As part of the Right Serving, Right Sizing plan (RSRS), which encourages all of the departments to review their curriculum, the Philosophy department has utilized new techniques to pull in prospective students.
“We are reaching out to other departments to enhance connections,” said philosophy professor Neil Feit. “For example, we hope more arts students will take PHIL 270 Philosophy of the Arts, and perhaps this course might be an elective for certain programs in the arts.”
According to Karafa, the RSRS was in planning before they knew anything about the huge “influx of students” this semester.
“I would say that some of what happened through RSRS, such as the changes in admissions are correlated (to the increase in enrollment), so I think a lot of what happened in RSRS led to that. But overall from a curricular standpoint, I wouldn’t say that a lot of that planning was with that influx in mind.”
Despite the positive effect it has had on student enrollment and outreach, RSRS was at the helm of much controversy last semester. Because of the enrollment drop, a few ideas such as the merging of departments and the elimination of some upper level courses were brought up as being potential solutions.
“I understand the anxiety that it can produce, particularly coming out of something like RSRS,” said Karafa. “Any time you are asking people to take a hard look and to review their curriculum, reviewing the way they do things, I can see how that would induce anxiety.”
Some anxiety was brought from the suggestions of course deletions and a re-organization of some departments that, according to Feit, might have adversely affected some faculty members.
“Dean Karafa’s RSRS suggestion, as I recall, was that the idea of merging our department with another should be considered. So there was no immediate threat to the courses themselves, since I and my colleagues would still be teaching philosophy courses. On the other hand, we have two excellent adjunct professors who might have lost some of their courses,” said Feit.
The rise of a new trend in academia stresses the ambiguity of what should be done to help departments adapt to new student interests. Merging one department with another could be a possible solution, but the impact that it could have on students was called into question.
“In recent years,” according to Feit, “there has been a national trend of students flocking away from the humanities and toward the sciences, STEM disciplines,” so it is a possibility that merging philosophy with other departments could have poured salt into a now healing wound.
“To associate philosophy as synonymous with English paints in dangerously broad strokes,” said English and philosophy major Benjamin Anderson. “For a while, it looked like I was going to be graduating with only one degree.”
Although maybe not as rapidly as other majors, student enrollment in philosophy at Fredonia is increasing again. Feit felt that merging would defeat this purpose and work to further overshadow the department beneath more popular fields of study.
“The department argued that the costs of eliminating the department far exceeded the benefits,” he added. “All of our peer SUNY campuses have departments of philosophy, and it is typically junior colleges and the like that have departments like ‘Humanities’ where philosophy is together with, for example, English, or languages, or history or some combination.”
Even so, Karafa stressed that there was nothing really to fear in the first place. He believes in the idea of shared governance. He also believes that the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences as a whole reflects that philosophy.
“If there were going to be any reorganization of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences,” he explained, “everyone would be brought together to have that conversation, because it would be more than just one area impacted.”
According to Karafa, everyone has a say. Everyone’s ideas are listened to and respected, but ultimately “The decision making falls back to the dean, or the decision making falls back to my boss, and then her boss is the president, so there are a lot of decision makers involved.”
From Karafa’s standpoint, “We have a strong sense of shared decision making here on this campus, and certainly I’d like to think that’s reflective of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.”
Editor’s note: Benjamin Anderson is a Copy Editor for The Leader.