Merger With College of Arts and Sciences
In March 2006, Miami University Provost Jeffrey Herbst recommended to Miami University President Dr. James C. Garland that the Western College Program be phased out in favor of expanding Miami's Honors Program. The proposal called for the creation of the Western Honors College. This proposal met with resistance from Western faculty, students and alumnae.
On June 23, 2006, The Board of Trustees voted to eliminate the School of Interdisciplinary Studies in favor of a "Western Honors College" in an attempt to expand the honors program at Miami.
On October 24, 2006, the University Senate began deliberations on the persistence of the program (without the school classification).
In January 2007, it was announced that the Western College Program would be merged into the College of Arts and Sciences. Rather than having a department of permanent faculty, the program would have one central faculty member with students taking classes led by faculty in several different departments. Students now receive a Bachelor of Arts or Bachelor of Science degree rather than the Bachelor of Philosophy its graduates were awarded in the Western College Program. Critics say the program may provide diverse courses with faculty from different backgrounds but the student-faculty bond which was a strongly beneficial attribute of Western's previous incarnation may suffer.
Read more about this topic: Western College Program
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