Steering committee cuts programs, revises policy

The MSU Steering Committee pushed ahead plans to finalize the discontinuing of two academic programs yesterday.

The bachelor of science degree in child development and the bachelor of arts degree in general business administration-prelaw programs have been eliminated, and the last step is to withdraw the program’s curriculum from the Office of the Registrar’s catalog, Provost Kim Wilcox said.

“We discontinue something like 25 or more programs per year — that includes specializations and minors and majors,” Wilcox said.

The decision to discontinue the programs came after being placed on moratorium, which prevents new students from being admitted. Wilcox said the programs were cut largely because of low enrollment and low interest.

“The business prelaw program was redundant with a lot of other undergraduate programs in business, so it wasn’t unique and didn’t offer something unique relative to other business (programs),” he said.

John Wagner, associate dean for undergraduate programs in the Eli Broad College of Business, said everyone in the general business administration-prelaw program has graduated and the college now points interested students to other prelaw programs.

Members of the committee also asked MSU President Lou Anna K. Simon during the meeting to reconsider recommendations for revising the MSU anti-discrimination policy, which she agreed to take another look at.

The recommendations include having two separate bodies within the Office for Inclusion and Intercultural Initiatives, one for investigating policy violations and one for educating students.

Also during the meeting, University Committee on Graduate Studies chairman John Goddeeris discussed getting more faculty feedback on the creation of a university research organization, or URO. The committee has discussed creating the URO at length this semester and has not yet received adequate feedback from faculty members.