By Admir Durakovic
Editor-in-Chief
Many factors can create a sense of worry when it’s not clear what will happen come Fall 2020. Of concern is what professors will teach and what majors students will choose.
Gillian Small, the University Provost, has announced what will happen to the university in meetings with faculty.
There have been public town halls where these changes have been discussed and debated among the faculty and staff.
News of the changes have also been reported in The Equinox and The Pillar, Florham campus’ student newspaper.
The issue surfaced as students and faculty were not suitably informed of these changes.
“I do not know how exactly this will affect students until the changes take place,” said Vidal Lopez, Dean of Students. “As a non-Academic Dean, our office is not part of the conversation regarding curriculum changes. However our office will serve as a support system when these changes take place.”
SGA President Maame Mensah found out about the changes coming to the campus by reading the news on The Pillar website.
There has been a lack of communication from the administration toward the Metro campus.
Despite the removal of history and Spanish as majors on the Metro Campus, the university has an obligation to fulfill the degree audits.
“No existing students in the university will be adversely affected by [the changes], we won’t make them suddenly take different courses,” Small said in an interview with The Equinox in the Fall of 2019.
The university still has an obligation to provide the courses on every student’s degree audit that they initially signed up for, she said.
“The changes take effect in the fall of 2020,” Small said. “The freshmen class this year are still in the old structure as it were. But we have been recruiting right now (in September of 2019), for next year’s freshman class and they will come into the new structure.”
The restructuring of schools will have a major impact on the incoming class of freshman who will be operating under a different system from the class graduating a year earlier.
Geoffrey Weinman, Dean of the Maxwell Becton College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, said, “We will honor the curriculum that existed when they started.”
