CHICAGO (AP) — Loyola University Chicago administrators have made preliminary plans to eliminate the school's classical studies department, the latest move in an ongoing effort to address the school's troubled budget.
Larry Braskamp, Loyola's senior vice president for academic affairs, said abolishing the classics department is aimed at helping the Jesuit school "focus on excellence and on students being engaged and connected to the city."
The recommendation, one of hundreds of proposals stemming from a yearlong review process, drew angry comments from faculty and graduate students.
"We're not MIT, we're a Jesuit Catholic university, and it seems strange to me that we're cutting the classics, which have always been at the heart of a Jesuit education," said Paul Jay, a Loyola professor of English.
Classical studies, centered on the study of Greek, Latin, and the civilizations of Greece and Rome, have been taught at Loyola since the school was founded in 1870.
Only 17 undergraduates at the 16,000-student university now major in classics. The department has six tenured professors, two non-tenured faculty members and five part-time instructors.
Braskamp has said plans also call for the elimination of the master's program in Catholic studies and a master's program in psychology, as well as cutting back on doctoral programs in a number of other fields. He said he expects a final decision about the changes in May.