The College of St. Benedict and St. John’s University is undergoing major changes. On Feb. 24, the Office of the President sent emails explaining the damage.
Asian studies, Chinese, classical languages, Latin, Greek, French studies, Japanese, German studies and peace studies majors and minors are disappearing. Some limited language classes will be available. Meanwhile gender studies, music, nutrition, ancient Mediterranean studies and theater are shrinking.
Then, we are told on May 9 there will be zero fine arts programming for the 2023-24 spring season. The press release called it a “respite” from fine arts. Meanwhile, the school is calling on the power of St. John’s Prep theater legend Br. Richard Crawford to figure things out and hopefully restructure the fine arts into something beautiful again. Crawford is highly talented, very well connected and definitely the best person for the job. I am sure Crawford will do great things. But I do worry the school is not setting him up for success.
Slashing programs and skipping a season of fine arts? When I was a student, (I graduated in 2020), we had to reach a quota of fine arts. Attending performances and visual art galleries was part of the graduation requirement. The requirement was something like six live performances and two galleries if I remember correctly. I easily finished these in one semester because the fine arts programming was so strong when I was a student. Then I lost count of how many fine arts experiences I had. I saw a ballet and a gallery full of dolls in resin-filled jars expressing the pain of miscarriages. I witnessed a traveling production of Frankenstein that sparked a conversation about race and belonging with my date and me. After a play about dementia, my roommate and I talked about mortality and the human experience for hours. The whole campus seemed to ooze with stories and creativity.
Now the fine arts are stifled for some reason. COVID? Limited funding? Employee retention troubles? Reorganizing and pushing the fine arts to the bottom of the priority list? Low enrollment? A nationwide trend away from traditional colleges? The notion of students losing the red-brick classrooms stuffed with discussion about gender or the creative art galleries lining the Benedicta Arts Center fills me with great melancholy.
What will they teach anymore? In a land without legislation protecting reproductive rights, one might think gender studies is an important thing to care about. Maybe.
“We deliver a premier, inclusive, global educational experience to every student,” the CSB/SJU
website boasts, “more than 50 percent of students participate in a semester-long study abroad program.”
It seems to me, cutting away language departments is a peculiar way to deliver a premier global educational experience.
But, despite my sadness, my secondary reaction is empathy.
The schools are just trying to survive. This wasn’t a rash decision made by someone who hated culture. This was the result of hours and hours of meetings. This was the result of analyzing data and looking at what current and prospective students want.
The world changes: people have to adapt. The mission of the two schools seems not to be preserving ancient languages or deep-diving into culture, but recruiting and preparing young people for careers. What will the future look like?
Perhaps taking a couple semesters of French or minoring in theater will be enough for students. If they want to major in it, they can attend a different school. Maybe the fine arts will be more local, less expensive.
In February, the schools reported areas of expansion including graduate nursing, exercise and health science, climate studies, data analytics, global health, narrative practice and neuroscience. All of these things are important. It’s possible they could sprinkle gender studies and peace studies into classrooms without offering a full major.
Though it seems a colossal tragedy to cut programs, the schools are trying to figure themselves out. Let’s hope it works.
For now, students will still be doing homework under Alcuin Library’s concrete trees, lugging books through red-brick halls of the Quadrangle and rushing to the lakes for some peace and quiet. They just will be doing it in different ways than I did.
