Dear Students, Faculty, and Staff,

The University of Texas at Austin is committed to providing all of our students access to a world-class education. That includes providing students with meaningful opportunities to engage with outstanding faculty and to pursue fields of study within a robust and vibrant student community. How we choose to organize ourselves and allocate the resources we steward impacts this important commitment. Our students deserve our best effort to organize thoughtfully and effectively to serve their needs, maintain public trust, and fulfill our public mission.

The College of Liberal Arts operates at around a 15-to-1 student-to-faculty ratio, but is divided into 26 separate departments with student-to-faculty ratios that range from less than 2-to-1 to almost 60-to-1. I asked our Provost and college leadership to evaluate the fairness and effectiveness of this organizational model, recognizing the important distinction between the structure of a department and the subjects we teach, which can exist in many departments. They considered a combination of factors, including size, scope, academic mission, student demand, student-to-faculty ratio, resource allocation, and other dimensions. The review revealed some significant inconsistencies and fragmentation across the college’s departments. The review also provided insight into fields that remain best constituted as stand-alone departments and others that can better serve as focused areas of study within expanded departmental structures that bring together faculty, students, programs, and curricular offerings in new ways.

Based on this review, we are beginning the process to combine seven academic departments into two new academic departments.

The Department of European and Eurasian Studies will be a single department created from:

  • Department of French and Italian
  • Department of Germanic Studies
  • Department of Slavic and Eurasian Studies

The Department of Social and Cultural Analysis will be a single department created from:

  • Department of African and African Diaspora Studies
  • Department of American Studies
  • Department of Mexican American and Latina/Latino Studies
  • Department of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies

We are also initiating a review of the curriculum of these areas to determine what majors, minors, and courses will be offered in the newly formed departments. Of course, students already enrolled in the departments being consolidated can continue to pursue their degree programs within the new departments while the curriculum review and departmental change is underway. Any future changes to programs will be carefully considered and communicated to students in a timely manner as the curriculum review progresses.

I want to thank everyone involved in this review for their thorough work. I know that the prospect of change has prompted some concern, but it is important to bear in mind that many subjects worthy of research and teaching do not necessarily need to be isolated as their own small academic departments. Instead, these subjects can continue to be researched and taught in the broader context of other fields, classes, disciplines, and departments.

These two new departments reflect our ongoing commitment to academic excellence and our responsibility to ensure that every student at UT Austin has access to a balanced and challenging educational experience. We will continue to review our academic structures to ensure they serve our students well and position us for long-term flourishing in our research and teaching mission.

Sincerely,

Jim Davis
President