What do we mean by Our University? Part 2, Our Degrees and Protecting At-Risk Degree Programs
Date: Tuesday, September 23, 2025
In July, the Indiana Commission on Higher Education released a list of voluntary degree/program eliminations in compliance with Indiana law HEA-1001, the state budget bill that mandated the elimination of “low enrollment” degrees and programs in addition to subjecting classrooms and research to more scrutiny from the conservative legislature. Programs across the university in sciences, social sciences, and humanities are directly threatened by these consolidations/eliminations.
Consolidated/eliminated programs will not be able to sustain the same SAA positions, tenure lines, and staff positions. Reductions in faculty put more strain on graduate workers and adjuncts, producing more precarity across the university. Students will have fewer degree paths and a less rich education as courses offered by these departments become unsustainable. These cuts worsen working conditions for every single graduate worker, staff member, and faculty member at IU.
Among the degrees and programs slated for consolidation and elimination are world-class programs in languages. These language programs are among the best in the world, and have an enormous impact on the reputation and recruiting that sustains IU. This specialization in languages has a direct impact on the reputation and value of the other degrees offered by IU.
If the reputation of the university is built on it’s unique degree offerings (even today, IU’s front page touts over 930 programs as a key selling point for the university), the graduate workers, staff, and faculty who run those programs deserve input on the process of consolidations/eliminations. That is why we’re calling for the election of formal bargaining representatives to negotiate and work with IU on these consolidations and eliminations.
IU must take measures to protect degree programs and associated departments at risk of dissolution under HEA-1001-2025 through negotiations with elected bargaining representatives for the graduate workers, students, faculty, and staff impacted.
Workers have a right to negotiate the conditions of their work, but that is only possible through collective action, starting with signing a union card!
Even if you’ve signed a union card in past semesters, be sure to sign this new card!