Editor’s Note: The Undergraduate Research Committee co-chair and faculty quoted in the editorial are speaking in their capacity as private citizens, not as employees of the University.
The University will shut down four student support programs beginning May 1. These departments provide student resources, faculty expertise and interdisciplinary research opportunities.
The Office of Undergraduate Research, Office of Community Engagement, Vick Advising Excellence Center and the Center for Teaching and Learning will be eliminated.
In an email obtained by The Daily Texan, assistant dean for First-Year Initiatives Patty Moran announced the termination of her position and confirmed the removal of the eliminated centers’ staff. These faculty provided resources ranging from undergraduate research assistance to curriculum advising.
According to a UT spokesperson, resources for these closed offices will be reallocated to the individual colleges where they’re deemed “most effective.”
“Our resolute commitment to the highest quality of undergraduate teaching and learning means that we regularly assess how best to allocate resources to support the most meaningful undergraduate experience possible,” the spokesperson said in an email to the Texan.
The division of these interdisciplinary offices is not worth the supposed “efficiency” it may bring. Student services are inherently intercollegiate, so fragmenting them defeats their purpose and shifts the burden onto students who must spend additional time identifying the correct pathways for help.
The Office of Undergraduate Research allows students to share their work through academic publishing, national and international conferences and campus events. It is unclear if administration will keep the wide array of key resources for undergraduates, such as individual advising, faculty assistance, Eureka, a database for easy access to current undergraduate research, and Texas Student Research Showdown, after the restructuring.
“It is truly stressful to see that there is not (an) office for (research) anymore, especially because it has happened so suddenly, it does make me think, ‘what kind of direction is research now going to take at UT?’” said Saisha Salpekar, international relations and global studies junior and Senate council undergraduate research committee co-chair.
Interdisciplinary research is essential for bringing together new perspectives that, when combined, can expose gaps in research that have not yet been explored. At UT, although research offices exist in every college, The Office of Undergraduate Research provides a centralized hub for the networking, funding and support needed for undergraduate involvement in cross-college research, which students will lose access to after its shutdown.
The Center for Teaching and Learning is also on the chopping block. The Center, which has existed at UT for over 50 years, supports more students than we realize in more ways than we can count.
“I wish that more people realized that the CTL affects a lot more people than you think,” said Elise Brod, graduate teaching consultant at the Center. “Even if you feel like you’ve never directly interacted with the CTL, they’ve probably had an impact on your education as an undergraduate, because they provide teacher training for graduate student TAs (and) your (postdoctoral) instructors.”
Universities operate as an intellectual environment because of these tried-and-true systems; without them, UT’s capacity for teaching and learning could suffer.
“A lot of departments in CNS don’t have their own formal teacher training programs, so (CTL programs are) the only chance that my students have to learn about how to teach,” Brod said.
The Center also acts as a channel for faculty input, thereby increasing the expertise going into coursework and instruction. In the absence of the CTL and other departments, faculty find themselves without access to staff and resources designed to assist them.
“The Center for Teaching and Learning is critical for helping faculty be the world-class teachers that we are at the University of Texas,” said Julie Minich, secretary of UT’s American Association of University Professors chapter and English professor. “We’re losing not just colleagues that we deeply love and respect, but we’re losing so much expertise, so much institutional memory, so many skills that allow UT to provide world-class undergraduate education.”
While certain faculty received an email Jan. 16 announcing the termination of their offices, Brod said CTL student staff were informed five days later. Additionally, Lauren Gutterman, vice president of the AAUP chapter at UT, found out through a Facebook post while Minich discovered the news through a friend’s text.
With no prior knowledge or preparation and no space to object after Senate Bill 37 ended faculty councils, UT’s educators, who are already losing trust in UT, are once again left in the dark.
“This past year in particular, there’s really been a lack of clear communication coming from the upper levels of the administration of this university,” Gutterman said. “That fosters rumors and hearsay, people make guesses and misinformation circulates. … Clear communication from our leaders would be, at the bare minimum, a way to address that.”
The lack of broad faculty consultation in the decision is part of a problematic pattern from the University. When resources meant to assist faculty and students are changed, open communication with affected faculty is obligatory.
If executed correctly, these reallocated resources may not impose on the student experience and may successfully provide specialized advice per college. But this success depends on the funds’ implementation, the details of which remain unclear.
In the University’s quest to remain a world-class research institution, the elimination of infrastructure designed to support research and teaching for undergraduates weakens their chances. UT cannot be a leading research university if student research opportunities are being limited, and faculty expertise continues to fall to the wayside.
The Editorial Board is composed of associate editors Tenley Jackson, Tiffany Lam, Maria Vazquez, Belle Xu and editor-in-chief Ava Saunders.
