In recent days, we’ve seen media coverage and administrative memos on the matter of program supensions and closures at Memorial. I want to provide some context and clarification regarding the reasons for the demise of the MA Program in Religion and Culture.
The University’s ‘Memorial’s Evolve’ webpage states that the MA was discontinued permanently due to ‘primarily low uptake of the program.’ This is incorrect. The program’s cancellation was a consequence of chronic under-resourcing and governement and administrative decisions, not a lack of student interest.
The core issue, from my perspective, is not ‘market demand’ but the use of austerity and attrition as part of a larger strategy to remake the university by enfolding it thoroughly inside the market; what is lost in the process is the university as an institution of comprehensive education, a site for educating a democratic citizenry, a place for students to explore and inquire, critique and create, a space held apart from, yet in dialogue with, the demands of government, industry, and the economy.
In its place, we are moving to a market-driven institution where entire disciplines are deemed ‘unprofitable’ or ‘irrelevant’ and then dismantled.
In the fall of 2021, we were forced to suspend admissions to the MA program. Our stated reason was a lack of resources. This situation was years in the making, beginning with the University’s austerity program in 2016.
Consecutive years of hiring freezes meant we could not engage in normal faculty renewal. As colleagues retired or moved on, our departmental faculty dropped from 10 members to just 5. During this time, HSS faculty as a whole saw its complement fall from over 190 to the low 140s.
When we made the difficult decision to formally dissolve the program last fall, we were transparent: a dramatic fall in our faculty complement, coupled with inadequate graduate funding and pressures for larger classes, made it no longer feasible to run a viable graduate program.
This was a painful decision for a department that once hosted the largest and most respected Religious Studies program east of Montreal.
This situation is not an isolated incident but a symptom of a larger shift in the university’s priorities. While the core mission of providing comprehensive education to the people of this province has suffered, we have seen significant expenditures on non-academic priorities.
The university has spent millions purchasing buildings, over-building the Core Science Facility (which, as the Auditor General’s report notes, operates at 16% capacity and is now being marketed as a wedding venue), expanding a high-paid senior administrative layer, hiring endless rounds of external consultants, and eroding collegial governance.
With the end of the tuition freeze, students are being asked to foot the bill for these choices.
The loss of the Religion and Culture MA is a direct result of these priorities. It is a loss for academic diversity and for students who seek a comprehensive understanding of the world. As this model continues, we can only expect more program offerings to follow the same path.
Dr. Barry Stephenson is Head of the Department of Religion and Culture, and co-director of For a New Earth http://foranewearth.org/
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