MSU's urban studies program might face cuts if a recommendation to delete the Department of Political Science's doctoral program receives approval today.
The University Committee on Curriculum included the recommendation in its program actions proposal for today's Academic Council meeting.
Jo Ann Beckwith, director of the University Curriculum Committee, said the program will be deleted because of a lack of student interest.
"You really need a number of students interested to keep it running," she said. "After you run a program for a few years you find out, yes, there is a market for it, or not."
Political Science Chairman Richard Hula said there is interest, but efforts by the late urban affairs Professor Ruth Simms Hamilton, who worked with a program focusing on urbanization and globalization, need to continue through the urban studies reorganization.
Hamilton was found dead in her Meridian Township home in November.
She was a scholar, professor and mentor at MSU for 35 years.
"She was chairing this committee, thinking about the alternative," Hula said. "Obviously, it's a tragedy, but she had been involved in the whole process and this will not shut down what she had been doing."
Marietta Baba, dean of the College of Social Science, said Hamilton's goal to make MSU's urban studies program nationally prominent were not being met with the current system.
"The program in the past did good work, but not necessarily on the cutting edge in terms of academic scholarship," Baba said. "We wanted something that was more forward-looking and visionary in terms of what is going on in cities today."
Baba said Hamilton's idea to create a new program for trans-national cities that would focus on how globalization is affecting cities will help MSU's urban studies program go mainstream.
"It would be a unique niche for MSU," she said.
The curriculum committee also made suggestions for five other programs to be cut.
The College of Agriculture and Natural Resources's technology systems management bachelor's program is the only suggested new curriculum addition for the council's consideration.
