DAN QUAGLIANA
News Editor
Over the last few weeks, rumors have been swirling around Fredonia’s campus regarding the proposed program cuts, leading to an atmosphere of suspicion and mistrust between students and the administration.
One such rumor is that the proposed programs have officially and irreversibly been cut by the administration — students have been sharing this information amongst themselves. But this isn’t true: President Stephen Kolison and his cabinet say that feedback is being collected from the campus at large, which will influence their decisions in a few weeks.
According to the Program Deactivation Review Process (PDRP) timeline available on Fredonia’s website, two different conversations are happening on campus right now.
From Feb. 27 to March 18, University Senators are discussing the revised discontinuation list with their constituents; almost every department on campus has a Senator representing them. Most of them are faculty members, but students’ representatives are the Student Association president and vice president, as well as the four class presidents.
Another process that was supposed to occur at this point in the timeline concerns the feedback that the Provost’s Council was slated to receive from the campus and community regarding the revised discontinuation list from Feb. 27 to March 8. However, as of March 2, this process has yet to happen because this revised list has not been publicly shared by Academic Affairs. According to Provost Dr. David Starrett, this lack of community accessibility to the campus’s future is because the department chairs that oversee the programs that are being discussed have requested to keep those conversations private.
Another rumor that students have heard about is an apparent merging of the theatre and dance department with the School of Music. Most students have expressed displeasure with this news, believing that it will dilute the uniqueness of both departments.
“On Tuesday [Feb. 27] afternoon, I went to the School of Music faculty meeting, and I asked them their thoughts on bringing TADA [the Department of Theatre and Dance] into the School of Music, because they really do a lot of the same things,” Starrett said. “They’re performing arts, there’s a lot of … opportunities for collaboration there.”
He further stated that, “I’ve talked with [members of TADA, and they] would be interested in it.”
Starrett wished to make it known that the School of Music is not changing its name or losing its identity as something that Fredonia is known and respected for across the country.
In order to stop misinformation from spreading across campus, Student Association (SA) is partnering with Students for Fredonia (SFF). On March 6, in the Kelly Auditorium in the Science Center, the two groups are hosting a town hall meeting where students can direct any questions they have to student leaders on campus.
Following that, on a currently undetermined date, SA and SFF will host an administrative panel in the Williams Center Multi-Purpose Room, which President Kolison and members of his cabinet will attend. More information will be available within the upcoming weeks regarding the date of this administrative panel on SFF’s Instagram page.