Previously closed majors included in portfolio review results cause ‘chaos’
Forty-five of the 93 programs SU announced were “sunsetting” had already been closed, paused or consolidated prior to portfolio review. Some departments and programs took to social media to clarify uncertainty following the announcement. Lars Jendruschewitz | Senior Staff Photographer, Design by Sophia Burke | Digital Design Director
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When Tula Goenka and other professors in Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Public Communications saw officials had told media outlets the Television, Radio and Film Master of Arts program — along with two other graduate programs — had closed, they were “shocked.”
The news emerged after SU announced the conclusion of its academic portfolio review, stating in an April 1 campus-wide email that 93 programs were set to “sunset.” But Goenka said the TRF, Advertising and Photography programs weren’t actually closing, instead previously switching to a Master of Science degree of the same name.
“The amount of confusion it has created among current students, among alumni, among new students who are looking to put down their deposit by April 15 … it’s just chaos,” Goenka said.
According to an April 2 report from SU’s Office of Institutional Effectiveness, nearly half of the 93 programs will not see immediate change as a result of the review. Prior to the review, many were either already closed, paused or consolidated, dormant, had no students enrolled or went through name changes and replacement.
But, faculty said this was not immediately clear following SU’s initial list of impacted programs, which was provided to The Daily Orange on Wednesday and included in an April 2 SU News release that is now unavailable online. SU’s move to label “sunsetting” programs as either “closed” or “paused” drew national attention and, in turn, calls from campus members distressed about their programs’ futures.
The university later amended its list of sunsetted programs in the OIE report, providing additional context.
“There’s been some miscommunications,” George Theoharis, a School of Education professor, said. “The list said the inclusive elementary program is closed. I actually got some texts from alumni that day saying, ‘What happened?’ And that’s all not true. That program has been revised and renamed based on state licensure.”
Multiple professors in programs listed — but not slated for closure as a result of the 2025-26 review — told The D.O. that SU’s announcement led to “misinformation” and confusion among their respective communities.
Of the 93 programs, 11 were closed or “retired” prior to the portfolio review. An additional 12 were already dormant or inactive. In Theoharis’ case, alumni asked about the inclusive elementary and special education teacher prep Bachelor of Science program being listed as “closed” in SU’s initial list. The program, which SU later clarified in its report, changed its name to “Inclusive Childhood Education” in 2024.
Similarly, three other programs listed at Newhouse — the advertising M.A., photography M.A. and TRF M.A. — were replaced with an M.S. equivalent between 2018 and 2025, Newhouse Associate Dean for Professional Graduate Programs Carolyn Hedges wrote in a Friday email to faculty.
To address uncertainty that arose following SU’s announcement, some academic departments and programs took to social media to clarify their statuses. On Monday, the College of Visual and Performing Arts’ School of Art clarified in an Instagram post that “their work, resources, and disciplines are not going anywhere.”
Six of the programs listed as “closed” — the jewelry and metalsmithing B.A. and M.A., ceramics B.A., painting B.A., printmaking B.A. and sculpture B.A. — were consolidated into the Studio Art program back in 2014, the school’s Instagram post confirmed.
In SU’s list, VPA is the college with the second-most closed programs, with 17. In reality, 12 of these programs were either closed prior to the review or consolidated.
Another former VPA major listed on the initial list was the piano Bachelor of Music, which Department of Applied Music and Performance Chair José Calvar said has been consolidated under the performance B.Mus. “for as long as (he) can remember.”
The performance major is being reimagined under the music B.S., along with the music composition master of music and music composition B.Mus., according to the OIE report.
“My assumption is that for whatever reason, some step was skipped along the way and they were essentially put into bureaucratic purgatory but not fully erased,” Chris Wildrick, a VPA associate professor and Studio Arts area lead, wrote in an April 1 statement to The D.O. “Their current deletion is just a formality based on our intentional curriculum change from a long time ago.”
Echoing Wildrick, School of Education Dean Kelly Chandler-Olcott said SU’s inclusion of dormant and already closed programs was to reduce “administrative” overhead.
The New York State Department of Education keeps a list of all registered academic programs offered at colleges and universities. Chandler-Olcott said SU may have listed inactive programs to remain compliant with state guidelines. An SU spokesperson confirmed Monday that updating the programs reported to the NYSED was a “parallel administrative task” to the main review.
“It’s really important that we have a clean relationship with New York State, right?” Chandler-Olcott said. “We have to make sure that we’re matching up so that there’s no jeopardy for students.”
The College of Arts and Sciences had the largest number of programs directly impacted by the review, eliminating or consolidating 17 total B.A. and B.S. degree options.
At the College of Engineering and Computer Science, no active programs were cut as a result of the review — despite seven initially being listed as “closed,” Jonathan Hoster, ECS’s associate director for undergraduate admissions and recruitment, said.
Five programs — the computational journalism M.S., computational science M.S., systems and information science B.S. and M.S., and the systems assurance advanced certificate — had no students enrolled. The other two, the computer engineering C.E. and electrical engineering E.E., were dormant and have a B.S. equivalent.
One ECS associate professor, Ed Bogucz, said he didn’t hear about the reported closures until he read about them in The New York Times.
Similarly, in the Whitman School of Management, Management Department Chair Lynne Vincent said its lone program listed as closed in the portfolio review — the general studies in management B.S. has not been active for years.
Even programs that will change as a result of the review said media coverage of the results led to confusion among students and their families.
The day following last week’s announcement, the Italian program — which is being absorbed into a new world languages and cultures B.A. program — sent out an email to the program calling the “closed” designation “factually and demonstrably” wrong.
In a Monday Instagram post, the American Association for Italian Studies wrote SU’s Italian program was “not being closed, sunsetted, eliminated, etc.,” citing SU Italian Program Coordinator Lauren Surovi.
All students enrolled in the affected programs will be able to complete their degrees, Provost Lois Agnew wrote in her initial April 1 message.
“I just wish in that first round that there had been some explanation of why things were being done, right?” Goenka said. “It’s a lot of minute details, but I think being transparent with your information is the most important thing.”
Enterprise Editor Samantha Olander, Senior Staff Writer Kate Jackson, News Editor Brenne Sheehan, Asst. News Digital Editor Owen Smith and Asst. News Editor Chloe Fox Rinka contributed reporting to this article.
