Spring Hill College alumna pens open letter to school after majors dropped from curriculum
School officials said in an email to students and faculty the following majors have been dropped: Chemistry, Biochemistry, History, Philosophy, Secondary Education, and the Studio Art major and minor.
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'It's a matter of if there is not a demand, students are shifting their focus, so we need to be nimble and to shift as well,' SHC President Mary Van Brunt said.
The school is offering students the ability to complete their current major if they choose. Otherwise, school officials said they'll help students make an easy transition to a new major.
Van Brunt told News 5 Wednesday the school needed to save about 5% of its budget.
'Most small faith-based colleges have financial challenges, and we are no different from having financial challenges,' Van Brunt said.
As a result, faculty positions at SHC have been reduced, and faculty members have already been personally notified.
Adele Lemm graduated from Spring Hill College in 2018. She expressed her 'profound disappointment' in her open letter to the school.
Lemm published 'A Lament for the Loss of Studio Art and Other Disciplines at Spring Hill College: An Open Letter to the Administration of Spring Hill College' on Wednesday.
Lemm discussed her disappointment for the school's removal of the Studio Art degree.
'Let us be clear: you are removing a career path that, still today, the school boasts as 'the right place to land' to help secure future success in art careers, betraying the trust of students who chose Spring Hill College for its supposed commitment to a comprehensive arts education,' she said.
'Spring Hill College states that the arts 'help us better understand and experience what it is to be fully human and alive,'' Lemm continued. 'By removing Studio Art, you are then actively diminishing the opportunities for students to explore and express what it means to be human, in your own words.'
Lemm also highlighted the lack of communication from the school to its alumni when it comes to making such decisions. She used the word 'alarming' when discussing the elimination of Liberal Arts majors as well as Chemistry, Biochemistry, History and Secondary Education.
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'This wholesale dismantling of diverse academic disciplines is alarming, especially for a Liberal Arts College….,' she said.
'This is not a pragmatic decision; it is a cultural and intellectual disservice for students, the City of Mobile, and Spring Hill College itself,' Lemm closed her open letter. 'Spring Hill College will lose part of its soul by the absence of Studio Art, Philosophy, and History, along with other discontinued disciplines, and your claims about the value of a well-rounded education are now tarnished.'
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