Jennie Bergeron
March 25, 2011
Is I-49 dead in south Louisiana?
March 29, 2011
Nicholls State University responded to the latest Board of Regents low-completer program review, which targeted 16 of the university’s programs, with recommendations to terminate one program and continue or consolidate with similar programs the other 15.
The Board of Regents identified more than 450 low-completer programs at 34 universities, community colleges or technical colleges in January. To avoid being classified as a low-completer, a program needs an average of eight completers per year over a three-year span.
As part of its response, Nicholls recommended that business secondary education, a baccalaureate level program, be terminated.
“There just aren’t a whole lot of students in there, and students can take an alternative route – if they get a degree in business, a lot of students are now doing something called a master alt program where they go get an add-on, they take the Praxis and get the education courses and they can teach anyway,” said Nicholls Vice President of Academic Affairs Allayne Barrilleaux, who added that the program only had “one or two students.”
The university will now wait for a response from the Board of Regents as to whether or not their recommendations would be adopted. The board will vote on the recommendations in April.
“As instructed, we have conducted a thorough review, and we are confident that our recommendation will protect the academic core of Nicholls and preserve our ability to educate tomorrow’s workforce,” Nicholls State University President Stephen Hulbert said.
Nicholls recommended that six of the other 15 programs – including one master and one associate program – be continued in their current form: community/technical college mathematics (master), middle school education, health and physical education, geomatics, chemistry and culinary arts (associate).
Culinary arts is structured as a two-plus-two program, meaning its completers can go on to achieve a bachelor’s degree in the program while staying at the same school.
Barrilleaux said keeping the associate degree program in tact would benefit students who want to compete for national internships against students who have two-year degrees from other schools.
“You keep that two-year program in there so that when students are competing for like internships with students from other culinary schools, where they come in with that two-year degree, our students can compete [and say], ‘Hey, we’ve got that two-year degree already. We’re continuing on to the four-year degree, but we’re just as competitive as the students that are coming out of these certificate programs,'” Barrilleaux said.
The vice president of academic affairs said offering the two-year program does not cost the university any additional money.
As it pertains to the master’s program for community and technical college mathematics, Barrilleaux said the university is waiting for the program, which is offered online and attracts national students, to grow before they make a move to cut it.
“Not only that, why would you take out any STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) programs,” she said. “Our whole nation is just starving for people to go into the sciences and technology and math areas. Why would you eliminate access to those programs? We need the few that we get, and if you take access away, you won’t even get that few.”
The mathematics and music programs, both tagged as low-completers, would also be continued, with an added concentration in education for both programs.
Mathematics secondary education, instrumental music education and vocal music education would be consolidated under these two programs.
The art degree program, which was not listed as a low-completer, will also add a concentration in education and absorb low-completer art education.
The remaining three low-completers, which are education programs, would be directly consolidated into the secondary education degree program: English secondary education, general science secondary education and social studies secondary education.
Barrilleaux said English, science and social studies would eventually follow the lead of art and music, but she said the university wants to explore their options on to how to accomplish the goal first.
“I think eventually we may [add an education concentration under the primary subject matter] with some of those other programs,” the vice president of academic affairs said. “It was just not as clean, not as easy to do [right now]. But we’re going to check into it. Because for sciences, where do you put it? Do you put it under biology, do you put it under chemistry, you know, what do you do with that?
“With English, their curriculum was a little more complicated. They didn’t have quite as many electives in it as math did, so it wasn’t quite as easy to fit in. We said, ‘Let’s consolidate it and take our time, so that when we do it we do it right.'”
Nicholls terminated eight degree programs two years ago after a Regents review of low-completer programs that were not under the general education or education umbrella and were more than five years old.
The university was not forced to take any action, but it did anyway, Barrilleaux said.
Nicholls State University responded to the Board of Regents review of low-completer programs with recommendations to consolidate several education-based degrees into a broader-based degree program. COURTESY PHOTO
