Kent State navigates program cuts as Senate Bill 1 reshapes higher education

Kent State University is preparing to phase out or merge 24 undergraduate programs after Ohio’s recently implemented Senate Bill 1 required universities to sunset programs with low graduation rates. 

 

According to the Ohio Department of Higher Education (ODHE) website, state universities must eliminate any undergraduate degree program if the average number of degrees in that program annually over any three years is fewer than 5. This means each program must graduate at least 15 students over any three years to continue being offered.

 

Kent State has requested two-year waivers for five of its programs: Botany, Philosophy, Music, Medical Laboratory Science and Insurance Studies, in hopes of increasing enrollment and degree completion rates. They also requested one-year waivers for the other 19 programs, with plans to sunset or merge them before the Fall 2026 semester. They are still waiting on the State to respond to those requests.

 

Eric Mansfield, Assistant Vice President of Content Strategy and Communications at Kent State University, said the five programs on two-year waivers were chosen based on current interest and enrollment rates.

 

“Those are ones where we still have enough people interested in the program or currently enrolled in the program, that we feel like it’s worth the time and effort to try to make sure that we get enough of those people through to commencement,” Mansfield said. “There are other ones that weren’t close to 15 graduates, which we likely would’ve sunset anyway, because we just don’t have a lot of students in the pipeline.”

 

Mansfield emphasized that students currently enrolled in any of the affected programs will still be able to complete their degrees. The changes mostly affect recruitment of future students, not the ability of current students to graduate.

 

“If you’re in your first year and you’re in one of these degree programs, you will stay in that degree program,” he said. “So while we’ll still sunset it, what we’re saying is we’re no longer going to market it or bring people into that specific degree, and you will finish what you were promised when you started.”

 

He added that the 24 programs on the list represent only one percent of Kent State’s total graduates and the university regularly reviews and updates its offered programs.

 

“I think the really important thing to understand is we sunset programs every year,” Mansfield said. “It didn’t take Senate Bill 1 to make us do this. We add degrees, we sunset degrees, depending on where things are.”

The Africana Studies program, which explores the history, culture and social experiences of people of African descent, is one of the degrees facing elimination once the current academic year is over.

 

Mwatabu Okantah, chair of the Department of Africana Studies, said the B.A. program’s low enrollment has been a challenge for a few years due to changes in advising and shifting student interests.

 

“The pandemic really hurt the department, and this generation of students is just different,” Okantah said. “The way the university GPSs students through their programs makes it difficult for students to take a course simply because they’re interested in it, if it’s not a part of their major.”

 

He said that students aren’t aware of the program initially, and in the past, many discovered the major through taking Kent Core courses such as “Black Experience.” Those entry points have become much less common as academic advising roadmaps have narrowed. 

 

“Students are not aware of the discipline coming out of high school, so they don’t learn about it until they get here,” he said. “That’s often the case with Women’s Studies, Peace and Conflict Studies and LGBTQ+ Studies as well. So in that regard, all of us have struggled with numbers.”

 

With the B.A. being sunset, the Department of Africana Studies may also be reduced from a full department to just the graduate program and undergraduate minors.

 

“It’s all about the numbers, and that will determine the strength of the department going forward. Right now, there is a real possibility that we’ll be merged into the School of Multidisciplinary Social Sciences and Humanities,” Okantah said. “Because we’ve lost a major, we could lose our department status as well, and be reduced to just a program.”

 

While he said he understands the reasoning behind the state’s requirements with Senate Bill 1, Okantah said the department feels as though the decision to cut identity-based programs represents something deeper about the current political climate.

 

“We think it’s a dangerous decision, but we also understand the political climate that we exist in now,” Okantah said. “In terms of the Black experience within this country, we’ve seen this picture before. Over the years, as a people, we’ve always continued to resist oppression. It ebbs and flows.”

 

Undergraduate Student Government (USG) President Ivory Kendrick said he was surprised when he first learned about Senate Bill 1 and Kent State’s list of programs that will be affected.

 

“When I first learned about it, it made me really think about our legislature,” he said. “This is such an interesting law that they’re trying to implement, considering there’s other stuff that could be handled like tuition and rent costs for students.”

 

Kendrick said it was discouraging to see this issue prioritized over what he sees as more pressing student concerns.

 

“It was really disheartening to see that this is taking precedence over a lot of the other priorities that the legislature could be focusing on,” he said. “It feels like an attack on students, that’s why USG condemned it.”

 

He added that some of the confusion and discontent with the bill stemmed from the lack of clarity regarding how it would be applied and what would be cut.

 

“A lot of the transparency of it was kind of like up in the air,” he said. “This was a very ambiguous bill, and so a lot of people cut things where they didn’t need to, just to make sure they complied with the law. But I think that I think Kent State did a good job by at least relaying the information to me of like, ‘Hey, this is what we’re cutting, this is what we’re not cutting, and this is why.’”

 

Kendrick said his main goal as USG president is to help ensure communication between students and the administration as the university continues to implement the law.

 

“I’m trying to do my due diligence to relay these issues to the student body where I can,” he said. “And that’s why I released an Instagram post addressing the student body saying, ‘Hey, this is what’s happening.’”

 

 

Mansfield said Kent State’s goal is to offer programs to best prepare students for the future while adapting to state requirements.

 

“We’re always looking to make sure that what we’re offering is current for the job force and that students are interested in it,” he said. “And at the same time, we want students to tell us what they’re interested in, and we can help guide them into the path that’s best for them.”