The School of Arts & Sciences Announces Restructuring

Image Courtesy of The Catholic University of America

By Zachary Lichter

For almost a year, there have been plans in the works to significantly change the School of Arts and Sciences. Dean Thomas Smith, the Dean of the School of Arts and Sciences at CUA, has been working with Dean Seth Smith, the Associate Dean for Undergraduate Programs, and Dean John Choy, the Associate Dean for Graduate Programs and Research, on a proposal to restructure the School into the College of Arts and Sciences since the fall semester of 2023. 

Dean Thomas Smith commented on why they plan to restructure the School of Arts and Sciences.

“Higher education is witnessing challenges it hasn’t seen since World War II, and restructuring the School of Arts and Sciences will allow us to emerge from these challenges even stronger,” Smith said. “The process is guided by several goals – to enhance our academic excellence and to make our School more vibrant and sustainable. The reorganization means placing our departments in divisions to encourage more cooperation and work across departments, which will allow us to offer more innovative programs in line with student demand and it will help us serve our students better by aligning schedules in ways that improve registration.”

When the news came out about the School of Arts and Sciences restructuring, there were growing concerns that some departments might be merged or abolished among faculty, staff, and students. To eliminate the growing concerns among students, Dean Seth Smith invited students to attend a town hall meeting on November 12 in Hannan 108 at 5 p.m.The event was hosted by himself and Dean Choy to answer any questions students may have about the restructuring and also provide feedback. 

Through the restructuring,they hope to collaborate more effectively with students and faculty across the School of Arts and Sciences. Some departments, such as media and communications, sociology, economics, anthropology, semiotics, education, Greek and Latin, and other information sciences, have five or fewer faculty members. The faculty members in those small departments possess many responsibilities and some often do not have enough time to help students inside and outside the classroom. By restructuring the School of Arts and Sciences into larger departments, there would be an equal number of faculty in each division to create ideas and programs.

The proposal is based on a distinctive set of priorities that align with the School of Arts and Sciences’ mission and a Catholic approach to research. To do so, the deans created four divisions that support each program. Dean Seth Smith reassured everyone in attendance that the current majors, minors, and certificate programs will still remain in the School of Arts and Sciences.

The four planned divisions are: the Division of Integrated Sciences, the Division of Humanities, the Division of Social Sciences, and the Division of Politics, Global, and Interdisciplinary Studies. Dean Smith then broke down which department falls under each division.

The Division of Integrated Sciences will consist of the biology, chemistry, physics, and mathematics and statistics departments. Dean Seth Smith said they hope to bring the department chairs together and create academic, extracurricular, and career programs.

The Division of Social Sciences will have two departments. The first is the Department of economics, sociology, and education, which will contain each department’s majors, minors, and faculty members. The Departments of Information Sciences and Psychology will remain the same.

In the Division of Humanities, the English department will remain the same. However, the history department will merge with the anthropology department because there is a good amount of overlap between both departments already. 

Additionally, in the Division of Humanities, there will be the Department of Ancient Languages and Cultures, which will combine faculty members from the Greek and Latin departments, semiotics, medieval and Byzantine studies, and Early Christian Studies. Similar to the history and anthropology faculty members, the faculty members in most of these departments have shared interests.

Finally, there will be the Division of Politics, Policy, and Global Affairs. The Politics department will remain the same while faculty in modern languages, media and communications, Africana studies, peace and justice, and Irish studies would all come together. 

Dean Seth Smith wanted to make clear that, with the restructuring going on, students who are graduating in 2025 and 2026 will still receive their Bachelor of Fine Arts or Bachelor of Science degree from the School of Arts and Sciences. Faculty advising will remain the same across all majors.

Jackson Russell, a freshman politics major, commented about the concern of merging the departments.

“My main concern is we have different priorities when it comes to what we are trying to do, because as the politics department we are trying to do more virtue based education and that’s something the media and communications department and the other departments haven’t gotten,” Russell said. “So now having to go away from our independent department, which we’ve benefitted for a very long time , now we have to share our position with a completely different random department, I don’t know what that would look like.”

Dean Seth Smith concluded his presentation with the timeline of restructuring. Dean Thomas Smith worked with multiple groups of undergraduates, graduate students, and faculty members from the School of Arts and Sciences who advised him on restructuring. They are working to finalize their proposal with the academic council and the faculty senate this academic year.

If approved, they will spend the 2025-2026 academic year figuring out how the funds will be used in the departments, staffing, and advising issues for the restructuring to take effect in the fall semester of 2026.