University of Wyoming to Drop Philosophy Major
As for Fall 2027, incoming students at the University of Wyoming will no longer be allowed to major in philosophy.
The news was shared by philosophy professor Bradley Rettler in posts on social media.
He says that students will be able to major in “philosophy and religion” but not “philosophy” nor “religious studies”.
Rettler points out just how unusual this is:
Wyoming will become the first state in the US where you cannot receive a B.A. in Philosophy. The University of Wyoming will be the only R1 institution, the only state flagship university, and one of two land-grant universities that do not offer a B.A. in Philosophy.
It is unclear what the justification for this decision is.
The university administration has led the institution to a situation in which it is facing a $15 million budget shortfall. Yet philosophy faculty at Wyoming are already part of a joint Philosophy and Religious Studies department. It is unclear how much additional revenue could be saved, if any, by depriving students of the opportunity to major in philosophy.
It is not known at this time whether the program cut is a prelude to layoffs of philosophy faculty at Wyoming.
Meanwhile, House lawmakers passed a nearly $1.15 trillion annual defense policy bill for unnecessary wars.
Do we know if the department wasn’t attracting many majors?
Also, is it really true that not college in Wyoming offers a philosophy major? Was this really the only one that offered it?
Wyoming has about 600,000 people and very few colleges. Most of those are community colleges. There is a Catholic college which offers a great books-y curriculum, but I don’t think it provides a philosophy major.
I really don’t understand this sort of thing; if you already offer enough courses for a major (or in my institution’s case, a minor), what is the extra cost of offering it?
I’m willing to believe there’s an onerous hidden admin cost somewhere, I’ve just never seen it articulated.
If a provost and dean do not believe in the inherent value of the philosophy major, then the argument is probably all about numbers (sadly). The question will likely be: How many students do the full-time philosophy faculty teach each semester? The provost will wonder whether these philosophy faculty could teach more students each semester by teaching, instead, in interdisciplinary programs. For philosophers, when we encounter these numbers arguments, it’s important (in my opinion) that our philosophy-major course-enrollments are reasonable. (Sometimes it’s possible to slightly modify the structure of the philosophy major program to bring enrollments up to a reasonable level, and/or, to cross-list certain courses.) At an institution that bases decisions on numbers in this way, everything ultimately depends on precisely how many students per-semester the provost/dean expects full-time faculty to teach. If philosophers can get their numbers up near that expected number, then administrators will be less likely to target our major programs. In these situations, it can obviously help for philosophers to teach a large intro-level course in addition to a smaller upper-level course. Anyway, my thoughts go out to the Wyoming faculty. All this… and just as the public is discovering how important philosophy will be in the age of A.I.
The following illustrates my understanding of the factors in play as admin sees it (of course, this is NOT an endorsement of how they see it); corrections appreciated. The major necessitates upper-level courses (e.g., metaphysics, history of modern philosophy) that are taught by tenure(-track) professors. At some schools, such courses frequently have low enrollment. Allowing for heavy simplification, if the tenure(-track) professor makes $100,000 a year and teaches four courses a year, then, according to how admin may be looking at this, each course they teach needs to bring in $25,000 via enrollment to break even. If students are paying $2,500 per course, then the course must enroll 10 students to break even. So, at some schools, continuing the major can necessitate continuing low-enrollment, upper-level courses taught by tenure(-track) professors that lose money. Without the major, courses can be limited to high-enrollment, lower-level courses (e.g., intro, nursing ethics) taught by instructors who make $50,000 per year and teach 8 courses per year. Those courses make money. Again, this is heavily simplified and the numbers may be way off, but I think it illustrates the factors involved, assuming I’m understanding this accurately. Corrections appreciated.
I’m a philosopher and also an administrator, so I can see things like this from multiple perspectives. From an admin perspective, I’d expect that an important factor is low-enrolled courses. When you have a major, you have to offer the courses that students need to graduate even if there are very few students enrolled. Get rid of the major, and even if you try to offer a lot of the same courses, you have a lot more flexibility about canceling if the numbers aren’t there. Then you can reassign those faculty to gen ed courses and save on the price of an adjunct (or not replace someone who leaves). And you probably aren’t trying to offer all the same courses. A department with only a minor just won’t offer as much as a student with a major, since a minor probably only requires 15 upper-level hours with no specific distribution requirements. If you’re already offering some upper-level classes that serve other audiences, like applied ethics classes, then students can pick up those 15 hours without your needing to offer many potentially low-enrolled courses where minors are the only intended audience. To be clear, I know nothing about the situation in Wyoming in particular; this is just a general comment on the reasoning behind closing low-enrolled programs.
This rings true to me.
One solution is to offer upper-level classes in philosophy that also meet a general education requirement. This may require some re-jiggering and an acknowledgment that not all of the students will be philosophy majors. For example, we are in the process of revamping Existentialism so that it meets the Global Perspectives requirement in our Gen Ed curriculum.
Philosophy departments at many universities will need to adapt in order to survive. It is also necessary to develop good relations with admissions, with the Dean’s and Provost’s offices, and to make sure they recognize the value of philosophy. In addition, we also need to deliver on the value proposition, and not only for those already on board with the intrinsic value of philosophy or possessing a deep interest in it, but those who can be convinced of its instrumental value (conceptual analysis, value clarification, counterfactual reasoning, critical thinking, etc.).
Many universities restrict gen ed designations to 100 and 200 level courses. Also, upper level courses require prerequisites that nonmajors are unlikely to have met.
I get the tight budgeting arguing; I mean it makes sense. What I don’t get is why that way of thinking only applies to the classroom. Every year I’m told I have to staff my classes (I keep a tight schedule with fully enrolled classes, btw) with adjuncts because of budget constraints but… we just started a volleyball team. Is anyone counting how much money each volleyball player brings in compared to the coach’s salary, the team travel budget, etc? Never. They’re whole thing is just milk faculty as much as possible then make cheese for all their little pet projects. I hate them.
Yeah, I don’t know how those calculations work. It would be interesting to know how many of the players are on scholarship versus paying their own way, for instance. I’m sure that from a president’s point of view athletics is seen as the front porch of the university… it’s a point of contact between campus and the larger community. So you have to think not only about current expenditures but also future donations.
I love the image.
This is a shame. I cannot speak to the current state of the philosophy and religion department, but back in the 80’s, in the heyday of James Forrester and James A. Martin, Wyoming had strong little philosophy department with a thriving master’s program that sent a number of people onto PhD programs in philosophy.
Admissions to the MA program were “paused” in 2017 by the then-administration for restructuring reasons, and were never reopened. The program was then eliminated due to low enrollments.
The program was eliminated due to low enrollment *after* admissions were paused for years?
Perhaps this is puzzling. But many of us work at institutions at which the health of the departments is measured by the number of degrees that a major generates over a certain time period. That’s not necessarily a university’s decision, but a board’s. (I know nothing about the makeup of the Board of Trustees of the University of Wyoming, though.) And it’s not necessarily a wise course of action, but once it’s been set, it’s difficult to dislodge. Arguments about falling short of other states simply fail to move the needle.
If the philosophy major and the religion major are both falling short of the target number, or if only one of them is, then combining those majors into one phil-and-rel major is a way to protect that program, and its faculty. If that is the situation here, then Prof. Rettler should be grateful that the university is willing to solve the problem in this way. (I suppose that it is possible that only the religion major needed saving, and Prof. Rettler is upset that it was saved, in his view, at the expense of the philosophy major. But I hope that is not the case.)
So long as we’re finger wagging and lecturing people on what they ought to do, it seems odd to lecture the philosophy faculty on how they ought to be grateful it wasn’t worse rather than lecturing the administration on how they ought not undermine the quality of their own institutions
If you know of an administration that is receptive to such lectures, I’d appreciate knowing where it is located.
ditto for philosophy faculty who are receptive to such lectures about what they should be grateful for
Here is some context, from Wyoming Public Media (The University of Wyoming’s next annual budget covers $15 million shortfall | Wyoming Public Media) June 17, 2026. In many institutions, a 2% cut can be responsibly managed. The question becomes: How does eliminating a major help a department or college manage the 2% cut?
In addition to the points made below I would add that chairs often receive summer salary, stipends, and courses releases. Eliminating a major often means eliminating a chair.
Eliminating a major doesn’t usually directly produce savings. (Though such a loss might entail losing a department secretary, and a department budget.)
But it’s often the first step towards merging a small department with a bigger department, or closing the small department entirely. (If you have no major, your major numbers obviously drop to zero, and soon enough other provisions can kick in which say that departments with < n majors get closed.)
State legislatures which fund universities, and bond rating agencies which grade them, often look 3 or 5 years into the future. And so a university can say: Oh look, we’ll have $$$ savings in 5 years. They don’t need to lay anybody off today, they can just let nature take its course with the withering departments.
The same thing happened at East Carolina University (part of the UNC system), effective this coming fall. There were no savings. It was almost entirely to replace two low-enrolling majors with one that enrolls at slightly higher numbers. We are the only R1 in the nation, other than med schools and some tech schools, without a standalone PHIL BA.
Wow, I’m sorry to hear that. I guess we’ll be the second R1. Not a great trend.
This is very sad. The Philosophy Department at the University of Wyoming has an honorable history. Early in the 20th century, it hired a woman, June Downey, a University of Chicago PhD into its Philosophy Department and was later chaired by her for many years.
What’s going on here appears to be part of a nationwide trend to eliminate what are called “low-enrollment” programs. Many philosophy departments, if they are at all like mine, have no problem enrolling students, and offer courses that students love to take. The problem is that this does not satisfy lawmakers (or laws that started, as far as I can tell, with cookie-cutter legislation from the Goldwater Institute). No. Legislators’ measure of low enrollment is how many degrees are granted in a given degree program.
What are some solutions? One is to merge degree programs but offer concentrations within those degree programs that correspond to what we now call majors. The degree count then climbs above a critical threshold, and the students take (roughly) the courses they would have taken under the major.
Another is to face up to the moment. We live in the Anthropocene, an age of: AI; misinformation; disinformation; virtual reality; environmental, and political crises; bio-art; neuro-everything; post- and trans-humanism; and other rapid changes that philosophy, in principle, provides tools to analyze and to shape. As philosophers, we need both to make the case and to deliver instruction and scholarship that confront the world we live in and help create a world we wish to live in.
How any students are currently getting a BS in Philosophy?