John Brown University is shutting down its communication department and incoming students will no longer be able to enroll in the department's bachelor degree program, a university spokeswoman said.
The private Christian university, in a statement Tuesday, cited both a decline in enrollment for the department and fewer jobs awaiting its graduates, as well as "overall financial goals" for the campus.
Communication majors at John Brown pursue an emphasis in such areas as public relations, media production or digital journalism. The university will create a journalism minor, according to its statement.
Students criticized the decision in a group statement published Monday on the website of the college's student newspaper.
"Although we are a smaller major, those who decided to study communication feel God's calling to spread a message of hope. It is out of this passion and love for our major that we urge the administration to reconsider this decision and the serious ramifications it has for our campus," the statement said in part.
Rachel Ball, a junior from El Paso, Texas, said she felt "blindsided" when told Monday of the decision. At a meeting for communication students, "a lot of students in the room audibly gasped or shook their heads" when told the major is being discontinued, Ball said.
"For them to dissolve the department and tell us to our faces that they didn't think there was a job market for our major, that was really painful," Ball said. "I felt like all of the work that I've done here was being negated."
Ball, 20, said she plans on finishing her communication degree and wants to work for a nonprofit organization.
"We live in a world now where journalists and media producers are more relevant than ever," Ball said.
The university, in its statement, pledged to maintain publication of the student paper, The Threefold Advocate, which this semester shifted to an all-digital format. The university will also continue providing students media opportunities in radio and with the campus yearbook, the Nesher.
"Over the past couple of decades, the media landscape has shifted dramatically with the waning of small-market outlets, a significant decline in the availability of jobs in these fields, and the blending together of more traditional communication technologies," the university said in its statement.
The university's statement referred to efforts "over the last decade" aimed at shoring up Communication Department enrollment.
But "enrollment numbers have declined in the past decade from 55 in 2012 to 27, and the student-faculty ratios in these courses continue to rank at the bottom of all of our majors -- well below what is financially sustainable," the statement said, in part.
The most recent job outlook data from the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that while journalism jobs are expected to decline through 2029, jobs are expected to grow faster than average in the fields of public relations and for producers and directors of motion pictures, commercials and performing arts productions.
Julie Gumm, a spokeswoman for the university, said a council made up of deans and two representatives of the campus' faculty affairs committee made a "budget prioritization list" of academic programs that included the Communication Department recommendation, with the university's Office of Academic Affairs also involved in the process.
The university's president, Chip Pollard, and his cabinet made the decision to include the cut as part of the university's budget, which was then approved by the university's board of trustees executive committee, Gumm said.
"We continue to be financially stable," Gumm said, adding that university leaders work "every year to stay within our budget and trim things so we don't get caught in a really bad situation."
The statement also referred to "keeping JBU affordable," and the university on Tuesday announced that its tuition and fees for the upcoming academic year will increase about 2.2% to $28,924, with room and board costs unchanged.
In March, the university laid off 12 employees as part of cost savings efforts to reduce the university's budget after an enrollment dip in fall 2019. This academic year, during the pandemic, fall undergraduate enrollment declined about 3% to 1,416 students, according to state data.
With the most recent cut, the Communication Department's lone full-time faculty member will continue under contract through spring 2022, Gumm said. Two adjunct professors also teach communication classes, and that number could increase after May 2022, Gumm said.
Students, in their statement, described being affected by earlier decisions, including the university not moving forward with hiring a new department leader. The previous department leader, Marquita Smith, left last year and took a job at the University of Mississippi. Her position went unfilled.
"This is a difficult decision," Gumm said, referring to the department cut. "Its not something that was done lightly. We know there's kind of a grieving process for our students." The university will help upper-level students finish the requirements for the communication major, if possible, and work with younger students "to get them in a field that fits with what they want to do," Gumm said.
The university, in its business college, is starting a new major known as Integrated Marketing Communications that's likely to enroll some former communication students, Gumm said.
Ball said she is surprised at the move given that the university's founder, John E. Brown, a well-known evangelist, was also very active in radio broadcasting. Gumm said that while journalism and radio were part of the academic catalog in the first half of the 20th century, having communication as an academic unit appears to date back to 1983.
"This is a field that our founder cared about," Ball said, adding that "to give it up feels like we're giving up who we are as a school."