A Message from Nigamanth Sridhar, Ph.D.
Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs

At 91¹ú²ú¾«Æ·, our focus is on student excellence; the quality of the student experience; and ensuring that our academic programs, research projects, and scholarly and creative activities prepare students for the future of work in our region. This focus has fueled our work on revitalizing the Core Curriculum, which will reshape the overall undergraduate experience of every 91¹ú²ú¾«Æ· student. 

It has also motivated our new programs in high-demand areas, such as biomedical engineering, as well as our interdisciplinary undergraduate majors that are currently with the Ohio Department of Higher Education for review. These new majors will allow our students to stand out in their future workplaces with the ability to integrate different areas of study in new and unique ways. The creativity and innovation that our faculty have demonstrated will help shape the future of Northeast Ohio.

The same focus on the region's future also requires us to examine our portfolio of program offerings to determine whether we are serving our students and our region appropriately. Such examination is what our faculty experts in their respective areas conduct routinely. In fact, based on such review and examination, the University has decided to discontinue 20 undergraduate and graduate programs during the academic year 2023-24. 

Over the last several weeks, I have been engaged in extensive consultation with the deans of each of the academic colleges regarding our portfolio of academic programs. In particular, we have discussed decreasing student demand and enrollment in 22 additional programs. I am certain that our faculty have innovative ideas to restructure several of these programs to make them more attractive to prospective students, as well as to employers. Some other programs may need to be discontinued to make room for different offerings. We will temporarily pause admission to these 22 programs for the summer and fall terms of 2024. This pause will allow us as a University community to carefully consider these programs and make decisions that will best serve students and the region. The full list of programs is below.

I am asking the Faculty Senate to appoint an ad hoc committee on Program Improvement and Evaluation that will start its work during the 2024-25 academic year. This committee will complement the standing committees of the Senate and will advise the deans and my office on our academic program portfolio, including recommendations for program modification and sunset. This committee will also engage with our institutional program review and assessment process. 

I look forward to working with our faculty on continuous improvement of our academic program portfolio in the interest of serving our students.