Iowa State’s Faculty Senate considered discontinuing 10 speech communication courses as a result of mandated budget cuts to the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. Some faculty acknowledged the need for financial cuts, as part of Reimagine LAS, but raised concerns about the loss students will experience as a result of the discontinuation.

Speech communication

Rahul Parsa, chair of the Academic Affairs Council and professor of finance, introduced the first reading for a discontinuation of the B.A. in speech communication (SP CM).

The speech communication degree program currently has only five undergraduate students.

Parsa said competing majors like communication studies are viewed as offering a broader, more workplace-applicable environment. He said the SP CM major is, however, considered less appealing among prospective students.

“The SP CM major has been declining for the past five years,” Parsa said.

Ten courses were considered for discontinuation, including:

• SP CM 305
• SP CM 313
• SP CM 322
• SP CM 327
• SP CM 404
• SP CM 412
• SP CM 416
• SP CM 495
• SP CM 497
• SP CM 499

Abby Dubisar, associate professor of English and College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (LAS) chair on the Academic Affairs Council, said there are no other courses or opportunities that would replace the speech communication courses being discontinued.

“Since 2016, we’ve lost six very dynamic, active, wonderful teacher faculty, one really dynamic adviser, and then we also lost one faculty member specifically who developed a lot of courses and taught a lot of courses,” Dubisar said.

Dubisar said none of these leaders were replaced, which had the biggest impact on the loss of resources and support that enabled the degree program to prosper.

“This is part of the LAS reimagining, so these classes are being cut,” Dubisar said. “Having to make budget cuts became a key part of the conversation around what would happen to current [SP CM] majors.”

Dubisar said being a part of the Academic Affairs Council has helped her see how others perceive this change in addition to widening her own perspective.

“The students who majored in speech have always been just incredibly smart, dynamic and want to be leaders, and that to me, as a teacher, is the biggest loss of not having speech majors in my classes,” Dubisar said.

Dubisar said she has already voted to discontinue the major twice and is in favor of cutting the degree program in order to help meet the LAS Reimagined mandate. This being said, she said the discontinuation will have a significant impact.

U.S. diversity course requirement committee

The senate also heard announcements regarding the U.S. Diversity Course Requirement Committee.

Kelly Reddy-Best, chair of the U.S. Diversity Course Requirement Course Committee and associate professor of apparel, events and hospitality management, presented an update on the course committee, reminding senators of the committee charge and course approval requirements.

“Course review examines three documents so we look at the proposal, we look at the syllabus and we look at course artifacts, and this could be a lot of different things then of course, if the course is rejected, it can be revised and resubmitted,” Reddy-Best said.

Reddy-Best said as of Friday, 105 courses have been submitted for review with 82 approvals, with an estimate of 8,000 seats approved across the 2022-2023 academic year. She said nine courses were rejected and the remainder are scheduled for review.

“The current university courses in their current format are still going to meet the requirement for students who are enrolled in the 2022-2023 catalog or earlier and then all courses that are approved this academic year can be used by students who are enrolled with
honors on the 2023-2024 catalog,” Reddy-Best said.

Cullen Padgett-Walsh, professor of philosophy and religious studies, asked Reddy-Best if transfer courses are eligible for the review process.

“Those will be reviewed and though they will go through the process, we just haven’t solidified that yet,” Reddy-Best said.

Reddy-Best said the committee’s final meeting will be held May 3, and the last day to submit course approval requests is April 12. She said the deadline has been set to ensure the faculty is able to review all of the courses by the time of their final meeting.

Biophysics

The senate voted unanimously to discontinue B.S. Biophysics.

Parsa said the degree program is no longer relevant. He said students in biophysics and the degree’s curricular content have drifted more toward biochemistry specialization.

“The learning objectives of the biophysics B.S. degree have drifted towards biochemistry to the extent that our students are better [off] with biophysics specialization than biochemistry, so this is in the best interest of the students,” Parsa said.