Catholic liberal arts college in Virginia courts backlash after cutting several majors, including religious studies, English, and math

• Trustees at Marymount University, a Catholic liberal arts school in Virginia, voted to nix nine majors.
• Some of the majors that will no longer exist include English, math, and theology.

A small liberal arts university in northern Virginia is facing scrutiny from students and faculty alike after announcing it will nix nine common majors from its offerings in an effort to better prepare students for "in-demand careers."

Marymount University trustees unanimously voted last month to cut nine undergraduate majors and one graduate program from the Catholic university's offerings. The impacted subjects include Bachelor's degrees in English, history, math, art, economics, philosophy, secondary education, sociology, and theology and religious studies, a spokesperson with the college told Insider in an email.

Nicholas Munson, director of communications at Marymount University, said the 20-0 board vote was preempted by "definitive research" that found the majors all had consistently low enrollment and graduation rates among students.

There are 74 students across the 10 programs, 22 of whom will graduate in May, Munson said. Current students majoring in the subjects will be grandfathered in and allowed to graduate with their chosen degree, and courses from the cut majors, particularly in humanities, will also remain part of the core curriculum at the school, Munson added.

According to Marymount enrollment numbers shared with Insider, none of the majors currently have more than 15 students enrolled, and at least two — theology studies and secondary education — have zero students. The university enrolls about 4,000 students at its Arlington campus.

But despite the low enrollment numbers among the majors, students at the university have thus far responded with outrage and anger over the cuts, which sophomore Grace Kapacs said are antithetical to the school's founding mission as both a religious institution and liberal arts university.

"Nobody seems to be happy or content with the decision," Kapacs, a 19-year-old communications major who helped spearhead an opposition campaign of protests and social media activism, told Insider. "Nobody had alluded to the fact that we would be cutting anything as big as majors."

Faculty, alumni, and students — ranging from conservative Republicans to liberal Democrats and anarchists, Kapacs said — protested outside the board's February 24 meeting hoping to sway the decision. Kapacs said that while it was unclear whether or not university leadership was convinced by the protest, it was important to get their message across.

And even though many of the students protesting will be able to complete their degrees, the concern is about what lies ahead, Kapacs said.

"They're more so concerned about the future and what that will look like…It's also their legacy," Kapacs said.

Kapacs said the majority of the campus community didn't learn about the proposed losses until one week before the board made its final decision, and students are frustrated about the lack of clarity about where all money for all the lost majors will be allocated.

Munson said the changes to the school's offerings are not "financially driven, but the university does plan to reallocate resources from the cut programs to others that "better serve our students and reflect their interests," though he did not offer specifics about where exactly the newfound money would go.

In Kapacs opinion, students and faculty don't feel like their concerns are being listened to and the campus community has changed drastically as a result. Kapacs described it as a "negativity in the air."

In a campus-wide message obtained by Insider, the university's president Irma Becerra assured students that despite the changes, the university was acting in the best interests of the students.

"We are not eliminating the humanities or social sciences from our curriculum, nor are we turning our back on our Catholic traditions," Becerra said in the nearly eight-minute message. "Quite the opposite."

Becerra also predicted that other liberal arts colleges like Marymount would make the same "difficult choices" in the future. In recent years, the decline in liberal arts majors has become a topic of concern, as the number of students graduating nationally with liberal arts degrees is on the decline.

However, for students like Kapacs, these majors are still worth saving.

"When you have someone majoring in anything, they feel passionate about it, they love it," Kapacs said. "You never want to say goodbye to something you love."