Low membership, student need cited in Wichita State system
Wichita State University is closing its women’s studies office, one of the oldest in the country, according to consistently lower student interest.
According to an activity strategy approved earlier this month by the Kansas Board of Regents, the Department of Women, Ethnicity, and Intersectional Studies may be abolished, and its education program will be merged with the English Department.
” As part of the Board’s academic program review process, this year the six state universities in Kansas collectively looked at 31 programs that did n’t meet at least three of four metrics related to enrollment, graduation, employment and earnings”, regents spokesperson Matt Keith said.
One of five women’s research departments, according to Keith, was one of five, according to Keith’s new email to The College Fix. He claimed that the merger may “maintain the system but lower operational costs.”
According to a new email from the university, Lainie Mazzullo- Hart, a university spokesman,” students with an interest in this intellectual area may still be able to follow those interests at WSU.”
According to the action plan, the merger with the English Department” will ensure students ‘ interest in this area of study will remain a priority and students are given continued opportunities for in-depth study of the discipline through the field major… or as a minor.”
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Wichita Condition began its women’s research programme in 1971, according to The Sunflower, the college student newspaper. It is “one of the longest- position, level- granting, automatic Women’s Studies departments in the country”, according to the office website.
Since 2020, the school has been working to solve “low membership, student desire, and education production trends” in the department, according to its action plan.
The work rate and the Student ROI, or percentile income five years after graduation, met college measures, according to the document. However, student desire and level manufacturing did never.
According to the action plan, the department has increased program offerings and made another changes over the past four years to change” the upward direction of enrollment numbers.”
However, these efforts did not result “in an increase of]department ] majors and in turn has not increased degree production”, according to the plan.
The Fix twice this month sent an email to Department Chair Robin Henry asking about the agency’s job growth and numbers over the past five years as well as the need for children’s studies courses. She did not respond.
Inez Stepman, top policy and constitutional researcher at the Independent Women’s Forum, said , applications like Wichita Government’s that “exclusively focused on racial or sexual problems” have come under more public attention recently.
In a recent email, Stepman warned that” [w]e’re probably going to notice administrative moving and relabeling of these courses in universities to prevent them from any potential investigations or funds breaks.”
” Some of these programs”, she said, “are already unpopular as a pragmatic matter, but I would caution against thinking that they’re’ useless’ or that graduates of women’s studies or similar programs will be on the unemployment line after graduation”.
According to Stepman,” There is a multi-billion dollar DEI industry in both the public and private sectors that provides ample opportunities for lucrative employment for what amounts to preferred ideological classes and regime enforcers.”
Meanwhile, Wichita State is expanding other educational areas where there are high job demands, including its physical therapy program, The Sunflower reports.
MORE: University of Utah will close women’s, LGBT centers to comply with DEI ban
IMAGE: Wichita State University/Facebook
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