A summary of academic program recommendations and actions for each of WSU’s 10 colleges from the university’s Academic Affairs Program Prioritization (A2P2) work is available online at the A2P2 website.
College summaries include:
- College recommendations to phase out, reorganize, consolidate or reduce, maintain or grow and invest for each program
- Provost’s recommendations
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Proposed actions
The program prioritization work was started more than two years ago to facilitate allocation decisions that result in the most effective use of university resources.
“Although not intended to be a budget reduction process, A2P2 has helped to guide 2009-2011 budget planning and to position the institution to move ahead in a strategically determined manner when the economy improves,” Provost Warwick Bayly said.
Two task forces appointed by former Provost Robert Bates coordinated the A2P2 work. The Phase I task force designed the review process, while the Phase II task force made universitywide program prioritization recommendations to the provost on April 15, 2008. Each college conducted its own program review and prioritization, and audits of courses and degrees were completed.
Since then, the provost’s office and the colleges have worked closely to finalize the recommendations and action plans, according to Larry James, who co-chaired the Phase II task force with Ken Casavant. James is associate executive vice president. Casavant is a professor in WSU’s School of Economic Sciences and a former chair of the Faculty Senate.
“In many areas, faculty have reshaped their academic programs and so are charting the future course taken by Washington State University,” James said.
For example, work is continuing on an interdisciplinary, cross-college unit focused on the environment and environmental sustainability. The faculty involved from the College of Sciences and College of Agricultural, Human and Natural Resource Sciences are developing a new curriculum and a focused core of research and outreach to meet contemporary needs and opportunities, James said.
Some degree changes have already been approved by the Faculty Senate. For example:
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The Murrow College of Communication received approval to discontinue five of its 12 options for the bachelor of arts in communication degree, including Broadcast Management, Communication Studies, General Communication, Media and the Law, and Speech Communication.
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The College of Agricultural, Human and Natural Resource Sciences received approval to reconfigure its bachelor of science in agricultural and food systems degree; consolidate bachelor of sciences degrees in crop science, soil science and horticulture into a new interdisciplinary bachelor of science degree in integrated plant sciences; and convert the current five-year landscape architecture program back into a four-year program, without the fifth year at the Interdisciplinary Design Institute in Spokane.
Work continues on consolidating and reorganizing statistics programs currently residing in the College of Agricultural, Human and Natural Resource Sciences and the College of Sciences.
In addition to the college summaries, the A2P2 website has the list of members of both task forces, the college self-studies, the Phase II Task Force recommendations, the Provost’s Report and the dropped courses list.
