A proposal on the table at the University of Akron in Ohio, US would merge several chemistry-related programmes and cut staff. The scheme aims to address the institution’s large financial deficit, as well as falling numbers of students on these degrees.
Under this so-called ‘retrenchment proposition’ the university would combine three entities – the school of polymer science and polymer engineering; the chemical, biomolecular, and corrosion engineering department; and the chemistry department – into a new department.
This news comes as budgetary pressures and falling chemistry student applications prompted some US universities to stop accepting new undergraduate chemistry majors last year. Some have reportedly nearly closed their programmes entirely. Overall enrolment at four-year colleges in the US has dropped 3.2% since 2019 and in that time enrolment in chemistry programmes plummeted more than 23%, according to a recent analysis of National Student Clearinghouse Research Center data by Chemical & Engineering News. This trend is not seen across all scientific disciplines, however. The number of undergraduate chemistry degrees awarded at US universities has fallen by more than 14% since 2019, but has actually risen 7.5% in biology.
‘Upon the completion of the merger, we’re losing 10 out of polymer science and their students would be left adviser-less,’ states Rakan Alrashdan, who is now in the second year of a polymer science engineering PhD at the university. The University of Akron is an R1-rated university, meaning it is a highly research-intensive institution.
‘Whatever work they put in so far is either going to go to waste or they’ll have to be relocated with their adviser,’ says Alrashdan, who has joined with fellow graduate students to protest the retrenchment plan.
The school of polymer science and polymer engineering has between 60 and 70 students and 19 faculty members, according to Alrashdan. ‘So, if they move on with these cuts then roughly half of the faculty is gone, and that means more than half of the students would lose their adviser,’ he says. Alrashdan would likely be one of them since his adviser is an assistant professor and the most junior staff would likely go first.
Under such a scenario, these students would have essentially three options – try to relocate with their adviser, seek adoption by another faculty member who remains at the university or work on completing the degree remotely with their original adviser.
Alrashdan recounts that he chose to continue at Akron, after earning his undergraduate degree, because of the university’s renowned polymer programme. But he argues that the proposed merger would destroy that reputation.
Burying or re-merging?
Historically, polymer science at Akron was a subset of the chemistry department, John Wiencek, the university’s executive vice president and provost, explains. He notes that researchers in this area at the university continue to collaborate extensively with colleagues in the chemistry department, especially in shared facilities like NMR. ‘The programmes that birthed polymer science are just re-merging and making a chemical sciences and engineering entity,’ states Wiencek, who is himself a chemical engineer.
Falling enrolment, decreased state funding and a deficit that stands at around $27 million (£21.8 million), have combined to force the university to look to cut costs, he says.
The university has already lost about a third of its students over the last decade. In 2015, there were more than 25,000 undergraduate and graduate students and now that number is less than 15,000, Wiencek notes. ‘Fundamentally, we are concerned about imbalance between enrolment and the number of faculty,’ he says.
Nevertheless, Wiencek emphasises that the retrenchment proposal is ‘simply an idea and not a foregone conclusion’. In fact, he says it is ‘reasonable to expect that this might never happen’.
Only about a handful of Akron’s dozens of departments and colleges are being considered for cutbacks, according to Wiencek. Other programmes, such as mechanical engineering and civil engineering, are also expensive to run but Wiencek says they are not on the chopping block because their enrolments are ‘appropriate for their faculty size’. ‘If you have three departments then you have three administrative assistants, three chairs, and maybe assistant chairs and programme directors,’ he adds.
But Alrashdan maintains that polymer science is the wrong area to trim. He says that the polymer faculty produced about 40% of all the school’s patents in 2023.
Looking ahead, the faculty’s counterproposal to the retrenchment plan is due on 3 March. The next step is that a committee comprised of faculty and administrators will make its recommendation to Akron’s president, Robert Nemer, by 4 April. Nemer will then make his own recommendation, which will then go to the university’s trustees by late April, and they will make a final decision.
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