Ohio State University will cut eight programs across two colleges and has proposed several new merged majors to comply with state Senate Bill 1.
Provost Ravi Bellamkonda shared the list with Ohio State’s Board of Trustees Academic Affairs and Student Life Committee on Nov. 20. The committee approved the Low Enrollment Courses and Duplicate Programs report for the Ohio Department of Higher Education, which predates SB 1 and is required to be approved by the institution’s board and submitted every three years.
Ohio SB 1, a new sweeping higher education overhaul also known as the Advance Ohio Higher Education Act, officially went into effect on June 27. The new law requires Ohio’s public colleges and universities to, among other things, eliminate academic programs that graduate fewer than five students on average over the last three years.
According to board documents, Ohio State evaluated its major program enrollment over the summer and determined that eight programs should be deactivated per the new law. In September, the Ohio Department of Higher Education approved the deactivation list.
The eliminated programs include:
Current students in any degree program that may be eliminated will be able to finish their degree, the university said.
Ohio State also requested waivers for 12 programs and temporary waivers for another 20 programs. Universities can request temporary waivers to merge multiple programs into a single program or ask for additional time to complete the program elimination process.
Most of the temporary waivers that Ohio State requested are to merge foreign language programs.
A proposed new French and Italian major will merge five current majors: French, French and Francophone studies, Italian, Italian studies and romance studies.
Arabic, Hebrew, Jewish studies and Islamic studies will become a new Near Eastern and South Asian Studies major. OSU’s current Spanish and Portuguese majors will merge into a new Spanish and Portuguese Studies major.
Ohio State also proposed merging its modern Greek and ancient history and classics majors into the existing classics major, as well as merging religious studies and world literature programs into the existing comparative studies major.
Waivers can also be requested for a program to continue for up to two years before requesting a new waiver. Ohio State requested waivers for:
Those requests are still pending with the Ohio Department of Higher Education.
(This article was updated to include new information.)
Higher education reporter Sheridan Hendrix can be reached at shendrix@dispatch.com and on Signal at @sheridan.120. You can follow her on Instagram at @sheridanwrites.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Ohio State to cut eight majors, merge 20 others to comply with SB 1
Reporting by Sheridan Hendrix, Columbus Dispatch / The Columbus Dispatch
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