Understanding the Faculty of Arts program renewal process
By Danijela Marcinkovic, November 7 2025—
In 2024, the University of Calgary declared that they were undergoing a three-year curriculum renewal process within the Classics and Religion department (CLARE), the School of Languages, Linguistics, Literatures and Cultures (SLLLC) for undergraduate programs, the Art and Art History department and the School of Creative and Performing Arts (SCPA) for graduate programs. Admissions to majors, minors and graduate programs were paused starting September 2025, meaning that no new students are able to enroll in the affected programs.
Students currently enrolled in the affected programs are guaranteed to finish their degrees despite suspensions.
In an interview with Aitazaz Shah, the SU Faculty of Arts representative spoke on the arts program suspensions.
“Finances is a big reason that this is happening and the government of Alberta has cut over a hundred million dollars since 2019 in funding to the U of C,” said Shah.
“The arts has absorbed some of the worst of the costs despite being the biggest faculty. It’s seen almost twenty five per cent hits to its budget,” said Shah. “Between 2014 and 2024, the number of permanent academic staff only rose by four per cent, which means that there’s tons of students enrolling, but [there is] not as many professors to accommodate the huge numbers of students that are coming in. We have to look at what makes sense for the faculty, how they can allocate their resources in a better way and how they can fight for students in a better way.”
Shah stated that the Faculty of Arts representatives have been advocating for students through various avenues.
“Some of the things that we’ve done is that we’ve been collecting data and we’ve been working with the Faculty of Arts and the registrar to improve how classes are actually structured,” said Shah. “All of April last year, we were asking students to fill out a survey to get their experience with enrolling in some prerequisite classes, and every single response helps the SU identify where some of these bottlenecks are at within the Faculty of Arts.”
“When we attend some of these forums that the university and the faculty host for some of these students who are being affected, we bring these feedbacks forward. We were also in a lot of closed door meetings that aren’t really available to the public. The students have trusted us to be in those rooms, in those rooms is where we advocate for them,” continued Shah.
Shah made some criticisms about how the Faculty of Arts originally went about the consultation process regarding the program renewals.
“Initially, last year, the students hadn’t been consulted with adequately, and that was a huge problem. We weren’t even being accommodated, even though, it is the most important part…for our feedback to be heard especially in regards to the program renewals when they’re trying to make these programs better for students and more attractive for future students,” said Shah.
Shah noted that originally it was unclear as to what these program renewals meant, leading to misinformation being spread. The SU is currently striving to promote awareness of the program renewal process and ensure student voices are heard.
“Last year, there was a lot of misinformation and many different rhetorics that were going around about this program preservation. Students and faculty members are becoming more aware of what this program renewal process is actually like. We’re gonna strive to ensure that every single program that is being part of these renewals is going to be shaped by student feedback and made better through student voice,” said Shah.
Shah noted that the Faculty of Arts has been receptive to feedback from the SU, including concerns about past consultations being scheduled at irregular times — a factor that contributed to low student turnout.
“[The Faculty of Arts] has been very open to listening to us. A lot of our feedback was the fact that their avenues through which they were trying to get feedback from students wasn’t correct — very weird hours in some of their sessions and very low turnout for students,” said Shah.
The Faculty of Arts clarified to the Gauntlet the times at which the student consultation sessions were held.
“These are the dates and times of the student sessions we held last year: Monday, Oct. 25, 2-3 p.m. SLLLC, Wednesday, Oct. 30, 1-2 p.m. CLARE, Monday, Nov. 18, 3-4 p.m. SLLLC, Tuesday, Nov. 19, 3-4 p.m. CLARE, Monday, Dec. 2, 3-4 p.m. CLARE and Tuesday, Dec. 3, 3-4 p.m. SLLLC,” stated the Faculty of Arts.
To ensure inclusivity and a broad participation, the Faculty of Arts stated that they scheduled all student engagement sessions during regular business hours and at varying times. They also ensured adequate notice for students.
“All student engagements were completed during business hours (at varying times to allow for as many students as possible to be able to participate) with email notifications going out for all, but the first session, at least two weeks in advance,” stated the Faculty of Arts.
In addition to the student engagement sessions, the faculty sought direct student input through surveys and feedback forms distributed via email.
“Majors also had the opportunity to provide feedback via the feedback link that was provided to all students in the affected programs with the notification email that went out. Response rates were low to the survey (two to seven respondents) and the engagement sessions (zero to nine attendees),” the faculty continued.
The Faculty of Arts emphasizes that student involvement is paramount, supported by partnerships with student organizations.
“The Faculty of Arts is committed to student engagement. There is an extensive Student Engagement Framework that the Faculty of Arts collaboratively worked on with SU and FASA,” stated the faculty.
“Consultation regarding the affected programs occurred throughout fall 2024 and will continue. In addition, students participated in unit reviews and curriculum reviews of programs dating back to 2019. Information on the Faculty of Arts’ renewal process and a timeline of information sharing and engagement events are available on the Faculty of Arts Renewal website,” stated the faculty.
This is an ongoing discussion, and Shah along with his colleagues are committed to enhancing the student voice and advocating for students.
“We’re in the very initial stages of this program process, and so a lot of this advocacy is going to continue throughout this year. We’re going to continue to advocate for students. We’re going to continue to get that student engagement within. We’re going to continue to fight for the student voice to be heard. We’re going to continue to try to preserve programs that we feel should not be shut down,” stated Shah.
Shah expressed the importance of student feedback, and noted that although they felt unheard at first, the Faculty of Arts has made efforts to encourage student feedback.
“The feedback from students is very, very valuable, and we didn’t feel like we were being heard. We expressed those concerns and the Faculty of Arts created the student engagement framework, and it’s through that student engagement framework that we’ve been able to get that feedback from students,” Shah said.
Further updates
On Oct. 24, an Art’s Renewal Student Update and Discussion session was hosted via zoom, open for anyone to attend. During this meeting, updates on the Faculty of Arts renewal process were discussed.
“We did receive some requests from the members of the Department of Classics and Religion. We had requests from the Classicists to move to the Department of History and requests from those in Religious Studies to move their program to Philosophy,” said Dr. Erin Gibbs Van Brunschot, vice dean of the Faculty of Arts.
“This does not impact student progress or the degrees that you will have,” said Brunschot. “The point of this meeting is to reassure you that the programs that you’re involved in are not going to be changed. It’s just an administrative restructuring.”
When discussing the structure of academic programs within the Faculty of Arts, it was explained that programs are often organized in diverse ways rather than every one having its own department.
“Different programs can be housed under different departmental configurations and across the Faculty of Arts, we actually have about 45 majors and…not each of those majors has their own department,” said Brunschot.
The Gauntlet asked how this will affect professors within the CLARE department. Brunschot explained that the initiative to move departments stems from faculty interest.
“Given that this has been something that the faculty members themselves have asked for, we would like to go ahead with that proposal,” said Brunschot.
“Religious Studies, the major and minor, as well as the associate graduate programs, will move to Philosophy. Ancient and Medieval History, Greek and Roman Studies, the major and the minor, and the associate graduate programs will all move to History,” said Dr. Melissa Boyce, associate dean of the Faculty of Arts.
This process is still ongoing and there will be more updates to come.