Last October, Mare revealed that the Faculty Board was planning to discontinue or merge several bachelor’s and master’s programmes. Following the ensuing commotion and an alternative austerity plan from the programme chairs, that proposal was reversed. In late January, a new plan was put forward which would have seen the discontinuation of the bachelor’s in Italian, the joint master’s in European Politics and Society and the research master’s in African Studies and Latin American Studies.
However, the Board has partially walked back on that plan too: last month, the news broke that Italian would be retained and now the joint master’s has also been spared (see text box). As a result, only two research masters were still on the agenda for discontinuation during the Faculty Council meeting. According to the Board, this is necessary because the intake is very low, while the specialist knowledge will be preserved now that the corresponding bachelor’s and regular master’s programmes remain in place.
However, the Faculty Council expressed criticism of the plans. ‘This feels like a symbolic sacrifice’, said Council member Jan Sleutels. ‘If you look at the proposals that were initially on the table, this is peanuts. And if you look at the potential savings, that’s also peanuts. Is this your way of sending a signal to the Executive Board that you’re willing to address the budget cuts? Is it a warning to the Humanities community? If so, is it even worth it to shut down these programmes?’
PEANUTS
Council member Nicole van Os asked what ‘the benefits strategy is’ and whether any research has been done into why the research masters attract so few students. ‘Because Africa is an important continent, and becoming ever more important.’
‘I understand why the Council thinks: this is peanuts, what are we doing here?’ responded vice dean Jos Schaeken. ‘You can think of it as symbolic, but it’s definitely a structural measure, however small it may be. We’re going to have to take lots of small measures.’
‘But if you scrap the research master’s in African Studies, you'll save two courses’ worth of expenses at most,’ Van Os countered. ‘So the savings are marginal. Wouldn’t it make more sense to first look at what can be gained from the larger programmes, such as International Studies, and then see what we still need from the smaller ones?’
Dean Henk te Velde: ‘Everyone knew that the programmes with low intake are financially in a difficult position, so we thought: if there are savings to be made in the faculty, it’s there. But because it has now become clear that the financial gains are less than expected, we will take another look at the larger programmes.’
Van Os: ‘But then shouldn’t we wait for that before we decide to scrap the small ones?’
‘We can’t wait’, Te Velde responded. ‘We need to make sufficient cuts soon, or we’ll run out of reserves. That’s what the Executive Board has been telling us all along. This means we really have to start now, to avoid a situation where we have to ruthlessly lay people off later. That would be chaos, and it’s something we want to avoid at all costs.’
NECESSARY
For Council member Adriaan Rademaker, that explanation was sufficiently convincing: ‘We can’t afford to say: “The gains are minimal, so let’s not bother.” We really need to get to work.’
Te Velde understood that it is difficult for the Council to issue a positive advice on the proposal ‘because we’re in a fog, with no clear sense of where we’re headed’. According to him, scrapping the two research masters is indeed a small measure, but a necessary one. ‘It’s not going to win us the war, but we have to do this. It’s not symbolic politics.’
In the end, the majority of the Council issued a positive advice. The proposal will now be submitted to the Executive Board, which will present the discontinuation plan to the University Council. The University Council has the right of approval. The final decision is scheduled for the summer of 2025.
The two-year joint master’s programme European Politics and Society will also be retained, the Faculty Board recently decided after consultations with programme chair Joost Augusteijn. ‘Europe’s position has changed radically in a matter of weeks’, the Board writes. ‘Precisely in this period, in which the role and position of Europe are being redefined, a master’s that studies Europe from a multidisciplinary perspective is of particular importance.’
In this programme, Leiden University collaborates with partner institutions in Central and Eastern Europe, including universities in Prague, Kraków and Barcelona.
The Faculty Board believes that the programme ‘can be of interest to a larger group of students’. As such, the programme will be instructed ‘to work on a benefits strategy with the goal of attracting more students’.
This is a different perspective from the one expressed by recently departed dean Mark Rutgers. He previously told Mare he wanted to discontinue the master’s programme because it ‘requires a lot of individual tailoring per student, and the content is not very humanities-oriented’.
Programme chair Joost Augusteijn is pleased that the programme has been retained, but is less satisfied with the process. ‘The Faculty Board had effectively decided to discontinue the programme without consulting the Programme Board.’
According to Augusteijn, the master’s programme does not generate a lot of money, but it doesn’t cost much either. ‘The craziest thing you could do is scrap a programme that studies Europe.’