Philosophy at Some Indiana Public Universities Threatened
The Indiana state legislature has passed a budget bill that will have the effect of closing programs at several public universities in the state, including some philosophy programs, unless the universities request permission to continue them and those requests are granted by the Indiana Commission for Higher Education.
The IU Indianapolis seems to be missing all of its departmental webpages. Reportedly, this is unrelated to the state budget cuts.
The budget bill sets as a requirement for a program’s continuation a minimum average number of graduates (calculated over the past three years): 10 students for associate degree programs, 15 students for BA programs, 7 students for MA programs, and 3 students for PhD programs.
Apparently over 400 programs fail to meet these requirements, according to a list created from information provided by the universities.
The philosophy programs affected include:
- the bachelor’s and master’s programs at Indiana University Indianapolis
- the bachelor’s program at Ball State University
- the bachelor’s program at Purdue University Northwest.
I do not know whether any of the universities have requested exemptions for these programs, or, if they have, what their prospects for success are. Those with further information are welcome to share it in the comments or email me.
You can read more about the cuts here.
(via David J. Paul)
Unfortunately all this is true, and the philosophy programs are not likely to be among those getting exemptions. I can send you a spreadsheet with all data from the programs with their status under the budget (exempt, eliminated, consolidated, or “commitment to consolidate”). That’s not confidential or I wouldn’t offer it, of course.
I teach at Ball State and our program is listed as committed to consolidate. We don’t know exactly what this means, but it goes into effect for AY 26-7. In this we are one of more than 40 programs, with a total of 51 at BSU eliminated or consolidated in some way. So somehow we will need to streamline the curriculum in a way that merges it with other disciplines. And it has to all happen very fast.
We have known about this budget amendment – added near midnight just before the vote, as these things go – since early May. Our university had about six weeks to forward a rough plan to the state council of higher ed, and so the various college deans had about a month. Of course this was after Spring semester ended and there wasn’t much opportunity for feedback or meetings.
Our program has a very strong history, including an award from the APA for curriculum innovation, several very active members of the profession did their Bachelors here, etc. So it’s sad to see it go. But we do have some strengths that I think will make it through all this, including a few strong Minors (Philosophy, Ethics, Health Humanities) and a lot of contributions to other programs. And we have a lot of company. In fact most Humanities programs – including Women’s and Gender Studies, African American Studies, even Spanish and Japanese – are in this boat with us.
Btw. many philosophy programs in the state, including almost all at regional IU and Purdue campuses, were cut in the previous years. A few private schools have eliminated philosophy as well. IU-Bloomington presumably retains philosophy degrees, though it loses a lot. Purdue-WL philosophy has actually grown due to its new partnerships with other units. So they didn’t eliminate everything, but they made a focused study of philosophy in the state available only to those who go to the two largest campuses (Bloomington and West Lafayette)
Wow Kevin, this is brutal. I hope you’re nevertheless able to enjoy Independence Day with friends and family.
And do you know anything about changes in the average number of students enrolled full-time at these universities over the last 30 years? If this fits the pattern, attendance at these schools has seen a precipitous decline in the last two decades. It wasn’t mentioned in the Forbes article, but that article did say that 68 of the 75 programs that were closed (as opposed to suspended or slated for consolidation) had “zero enrollment”. At any rate, that doesn’t discount the sigificance of what you’re facing, and I hope you and your colleagues are able to weather it well enough.
Hi Preston, great to hear from you. Yes we have all kinds of data documenting the slow deterioration of these majors, and indeed the trends are national. Each of these programs has its own story, but for the most part the ones that were whittled down to zero or near zero majors were part of a slower elimination. Faculty hiring is a big part of it. Once the incentive and decision structure of hiring changed, these programs eroded due to a lack of instructors and courses (in addition to the larger, more systemic causes). So in our case it was German and Classics that were barely functioning as major programs. And it was programs with close to zero major students and a lack of sufficient faculty and courses that were marked for elimination rather than consolidation.
Our philosophy program has struggled because we lost several instructors, to retirement or departure. So we offered fewer courses, and the major slowly became less tenable. We graduated only 17 in the three-year period, when we needed 45 according to this new rule. So we were not close, but we were strong enough to be marked for consolidation. That’s because we still have six people teaching philosophy. But even in that circumstance I had to teach overloads and lots of independent studies to get the students what they needed. And with a few of our remaining people approaching 70, it’s been clear that there’s little chance to turn the tide. Majors are harder to recruit when you’re not really offering the full slate of courses. Some signed up but changed because of these procedural problems. The only solution, in the absence of hiring new staff, is to tie philosophy to other (larger) programs more tightly. And it seems that is what the circumstance will allow, though there are so many uncertainties that I don’t take any success for granted.
Thanks for the further inforomation and background, Kevin. I’m embarrassed to say I’ve never given much thought to the contractive feedback mechanism at work when faculty are not replaced, course offerings are cut, and majoring students decrease. Still, I wonder how much is owed to decreasing student enrollments across the public university system in Indiana as a whole. In some cases, enrollment drops so substantially in such a short order that schools are looking at multiple millions of dollars in deficit (nominally) in a few years. Here’s something I said at Leiter’s blog a little over a year ago, concerning a similar threat faced by SUNY Potsdam:
I’m sure the Indiana school system as a whole isn’t facing quite that percentage-wise drop in enrollments, but isn’t the end result a budget deficit (and expected deficit) of comparable urgency?
At any rate I suspect that philosophy’s survival in many places will depend on the kind of interdisciplinary cooperation you’re talking about. I also suspect there’s room for a resurgent Americanist tradition to take root, interweaving philosophical themes with a first-order study of topics in the social sciences and humanities, but I’m not quite sure what that would look like. You’ve been at Ball State for a while now. Just out of curiousity, in the time you’ve been there and the faculty changes you’ve seen, do you have a sense of whether American philosophy has been more or less well represented over time?
The situation at SUNY Potsdam was caused by poor administrative decisions that resulted in the decreased student enrollment.
Hi Preston, sorry for the much too late reply. I don’t have the numbers for enrollments state-wide, but of course I’ve followed them for Ball State specifically. We are not shrinking at any level like the example you mention from SUNY. There has long been the forecast of a demographic cliff for 2025-30. But that’s not really a big part of this story as I see it. Overall enrollments have been strong. Some majors (e.g. computer science and criminal justice) are especially strong. But humanities have steadily dropped throughout that. Causes of this are not local, and you may fill in the details as well as I. One thing I’ll note, which is local, is that the state has mandated that high schools implement college credit for the statewide core curriculum. So students now regularly come to campus with 30 credits or so, when this used to be an achievement only of people who aced a bunch of AP exams. That reduces enrollments in core classes, from which philosophy majors are typically drawn (we have never had enough people arrive on campus with the intent to major in philosophy! They typically switch to philosophy after having one or two courses).
The gist of this is: enrollments overall might well remain high or even grow, without philosophy benefitting at all. Just as it’s possible to starve or go homeless in a society where wealth is evident.
Thanks, Kevin. I hadn’t thought about the way high school credits might impact philosophy enrollments. What about American philosophy at Ball State? Is that something you all have historically offered, or are in a position to offer now?
There was someone who barely overlapped with me who specialized in American and African American philosophy, and she was a very popular teacher. For my part, I see all such intramural questions – whether this or that subdisciplinary tradition is better qualified to navigate these waters – as not so important. (I might add that I’m a sort of Americanist, I suppose, but that’s not an identity I typically claim). What matters in those circumstance is our ability to tie some philosophical instruction to higher enrolled, administratively secure programs. If emphasis on American philosophy can do that, then great. Mutatis mutandi for any other area or tradition. But the bigger factors seem to be the willingness of colleagues in other disciplines to accommodate us. And that depends more on their sensibilities than ours.
That all makes sense. I’ve been overseas for coming up on 8 years now, so I’m not sure where current students are in terms of their receptiveness to American philosophy as a galvanizing force for American notions of self and community. But I’m optimistic. That, and pre-college philosophy instruction, both strike me as opportunities American philosophers should be doing more to investigate. Probably something better hashed out offline, so I’ll send you an email.
Regarding the IU websites that are down: The hearsay in Bloomington is that this is because of a hacking incident, and the sites are gradually being restored. It does not seem related to the merging or elimination of programs.
Here is an additional NYtimes article that sheds light on the situation at IU Bloomington: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/05/us/republicans-indiana-public-universities.html?unlocked_article_code=1.M08.wTQK.1w97yWQCRJjK&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare