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President Jacobs Does Not Know Exactly....
by Don Wedding, UT-AAUP Board
President Lloyd Jacobs has repeatedly stated in public forums including the Faculty Senate that The University of Toledo (UT) has over 100 academic departments which must be reduced to 80 to cut costs. However, there are not 100 academic departments at UT. According to UT-AAUP count, there are 45 academic departments not including the College of Medicine.
In his recent Town Hall meeting, President Jacobs was asked about the diversion of student library fees by his administration. (See UT-AAUP newsletters #31 and #32). He replied somebody needs to answer that except for me because I do not know exactly... Apparently the number of UT academic departments is something else President Jacobs does not know exactly.
The UT website lists 100 academic departments, but many of these are programs or majors, not departments. For example, the UT website incorrectly lists 36 academic departments for A&S, but 17 of these such as Africana Studies, American Studies, and Asian Studies are not academic departments.
The UT website also lists 10 academic departments for the College of Health Science & Human Services, but there are only 6. Nursing is listed as having no departments, but there are 2 that are to be increased to 3. The College of Medicine is listed as having 24, but another UT listing shows 21 departments including Research. It is not known how many of these (21 or 24) are academic departments in the tradition of the Bancroft campus.
The UT-AAUP received a list of over 135 academic departments from the Jacobs Administration, but this list is a hodge-podge of non-academic departments including payroll, HR, athletics, campus police, and so forth.
Our count of academic departments before the recent reorganization is summarized in Table I. The College of Medicine is not included.
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Table I
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College Academic Departments
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A&S 19 (before reorganization)
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Business 6
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Engineering 6
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Education 3
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HSHS 6
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Nursing 2 (will become 3 in 2011)
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Pharmacy 3
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Library 0
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Law 0
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Total 45
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Even if there were 100 academic departments as stated by President Jacobs, it is not clear which 20 departments might be cut. Excluding the Colleges of Nursing, Pharmacy, and Medicine on the Health Science campus, the remaining 80 would be twice the total number of 40 academic departments on the Bancroft campus.
President Jacobs has further announced that academic programs will be cut from 300 to 260 and academic courses will be cut from 3000 to 2600. A large UT billboard at Secor Rd. and Central Ave. advertises there are "more than 230 undergraduate majors and programs" at UT. The accuracy of all these numbers is questionable.
Although the reductions in academic departments, academic courses, and academic programs are part of President Jacobs' academic cost cutting, he does not say how much will be saved. Perhaps he does not know exactly how much if any will be saved?
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