Here is a short summary of "Realizing the Vision: Liberal Arts in the 21st Century Land-Grant University."

Though there will no longer be classes in which questions about citizenship, policy or the self can be asked, the university resolves to help each student understand better what it means to be human; to develop the intellectual, creative and productive capacities to be an educated and engaged citizen; and, therefore, to be able to contribute more fully to professional, civic, cultural and community life.

Though the university plans to eliminate the college in which the humanities exist, it anticipates the strengthening of graduate programs through synergy.

Though undergraduate classes now will be larger and thus unable to contain a writing component, the university thinks a student could reach an understanding about "what it means to be human" through a multiple-choice test and a class taught by more temporary faculty. They plan to do so through a combination of synergy, moving forward and dynamic reorganization.

Because status quo will encumber resources and keep us from a trajectory of greater programmatic excellence, the university proposes to realign departments from the College of Arts & Letters into other colleges and then rename the newly formed colleges in ways that either describe none of the departments that exist within them or are so unwieldy as to be ridiculous.

So, philosophy, history and religion now will be part of the formerly named College of Social Sciences, which will be renamed the College of Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences, while music, English and a huge number of other programs will be stuffed into the College of Communication Arts and Sciences, which will be renamed the College of Communication Arts, Languages and Media.

Michael Reno
philosophy graduate student