Humanities axes six programmes

The six programmes will admit first-year students for the last time in September 2025. The faculty will then close the programmes in 2030. The faculty assures that current students will be able to complete their programmes in Utrecht. 

Dean Thomas Vaessens acknowledges it is a drastic measure, but says he cannot avoid it as the financial situation is dire. The major cutbacks announced by the new Dutch cabinet only made things worse for UU. This year’s budget already shows a deficit of 7 million euros. That deficit would increase to 13 million in 2027 if the faculty didn't do anything.

Retention of expertise
A transition plan has been drawn up in consultation with the Executive Board. The Faculty of Humanities has until 2030 to achieve a stable balance between income and expenditure. The plan was discussed confidentially by the faculty council last Friday and shared with all students and staff on Monday morning. In total, the faculty must cut back by at least 10 percent of its current expenditure.

For this reason, the faculty no longer wants to maintain programmes with less than 25 students. Six programmes are directly affected by this decision. Only Celtic is the least popular of them, with only two students attracted this year, while the French programme attracted sixteen. The remaining four programmes are in between Celtic and French.

According to the faculty, the government's financing method, which is largely based on the number of students, makes such small-scale programmes too expensive. Vaessens understands the dismay and sadness this decision causes the students and staff of the six programmes, but at the same time emphasises that the knowledge and expertise of the staff will not disappear.

“We are a broad faculty with excellent research across many disciplines, and our research is crucial for UU's mission to work towards a better society. Therefore, we intend to remain broad, keeping the expertise of the programmes we are now closing. All other programmes are tasked to safeguard that principle.”

New design
In the next few years, the faculty will be working on a new design for its Bachelor's programmes, which will be based on more cooperation and overlap between programmes. In doing so, the faculty is following a different path from Leiden University, which is bringing several languages ​​under an overarching language programme.

In this new design, the expertise of the current language and religion programmes must be linked to broader themes and other disciplines in joint courses or minors. For example, a course on polarisation could discuss both cultural and language aspects.

Vaessens believes that, in this way, the faculty will be stimulating students' interest of students in the six disciplines affected. "These six programmes are doing wonderful things, but the stage they're standing on is too small. We believe that they will benefit from larger groups coming into contact with them. That will provide them with a breath of fresh air and the perspective of a better future."

Increasing cooperation between disciplines and programmes was already the core of the faculty board's vision for the future. DUB interviewed the dean about this vision two years ago. In the national sector plan, universities had also agreed to connect the languages ​​French and German with other studies. The idea is to soon allow students from other programmes to train to become school teachers in these languages. The sector plan also states that French and German must work towards a joint national programme. Universities have until 2030 to define what that will look like.

Vaessens says he would have preferred to carry out the renewal process under less pressure and with more financial leeway. “The context has changed radically due to the budget cuts, which is very sad.”

Other measures
Apart from terminating the six programmes and adjusting its Bachelor's programmes, the faculty intends to take other measures that should lead to savings in the short term. According to the dean, the most painful one is the temporary cancellation of the so-called "scatter time". That term refers to five percent of lecturer-researchers' working hours, to which no specific tasks are attributed. That policy will be discontinued for the time being., which means that employees will have to teach more and their workload will increase. In addition, Humanities is implementing a vacancy freeze and will reduce the size of its support staff. 

Other measures include discontinuing the PhD programme for which eight PhD candidates would be hired each year. This was a new programme financed with the starter grants that have now been scrapped by the government. In addition, there is no more room for the faculty honours programme, aimed at ambitious students.

Stable and sustainable
Vaessens hopes these measures will suffice to bring the faculty back to calmer waters. No compulsory redundancies are on the table right now, but the dean cannot rule them out in the future. He hopes to provide employees with more certainty about this as soon as possible.

The transition plan published on Monday shows that the faculty considers a reorganisation as a very realistic scenario. The faculty will have to “maximise” the natural turnover of staff and strive "as much as it can" to reduce the number of temporary contracts. In so doing, the faculty hopes to limit redundancies through a combination of these measures and the ones being taken in the short term.

The dean also appreciated the time the Executive Board and the other deans are giving him. “Let's be honest: what is at stake here is keeping the entire faculty of humanities in Utrecht afloat. Fortunately, we hear everyone say that UU must be a broad university and the humanities are necessary to fulfil that mission. I was not asked to make cuts either, but rather to make the faculty stable and sustainable.”

Last week, the Humanities Faculty Council announced that it would not issue an official response to the plan. This announcement was prior to the confidential consultation with the faculty board. The official response will only come once the final elaboration is known and consultation has taken place with the supporters. The plan must therefore be discussed in a public meeting shortly.

The employees of the six programmes affected are shocked by the news. It is a “huge” shock, says Eric Ottenheijm, coordinator of the Bachelor's in Religious Studies. “This is truly dramatic, especially for young staff members at the beginning of their careers. What future are we still offering them?”

To Ottenheijm, it is "incomprehensible" that the disciplines themselves were not involved in drawing up the plan. In his opinion, this makes it completely unclear what the desired connection between the six programmes and other disciplines should look like. “An interdisciplinary approach requires a disciplinary basis. I do not see how this can be maintained in the approach they've proposed.” Furthermore, he thinks there is no sound financial basis for the decision. “It is not clear to me how this should lead to a financially healthy faculty in four years.”

“It seems clear to me that we are not happy about this, this is pretty tough for us,” says Henriëtte de Swart, a Professor of French Language and Culture, who calls this course of action “risky” and sees the future role envisaged for her discipline as “fragile”. De Swart: “Rigorous steps are being taken even though the long-term implications aren't clear. As a result, we are starting to dismantle before we can start to build.” 

She acknowledges that a redesign is necessary, given the cutbacks. But she thinks she and her young team can help shape the new interdisciplinary course. She wonders if this redesign could not be achieved while retaining the Bachelor's programmes. In her view, the visibility of French and German at the Bachelor's level is crucial to attract students to elementary and high school teaching training, especially considering Dutch schools are suffering from a significant shortage of teaching staff.

Moreover, De Swart is concerned that each university seems to be coping with the cutbacks their own way. She advocates national coordination and cooperation. “This must happen fast if we want to prevent the inflow into teacher training courses in German and French from coming to a standstill.”