Loyola University Chicago officials announced Thursday that the school would not kill its classics department, despite a March recommendation from an internal review that the department was not popular enough to justify the cost of staffing it.
Although Loyola will continue to study the classics, it will no longer accept graduate students in the department.
“The only change will be that in the future, the masters and doctorate programs will not be offered,” said Bud Jones, associate vice-president for public relations at Loyola. “It didn’t appear to be that that was a good recommendation because they saw that still a number of undergraduates take classes and still need the department.”
Northwestern’s classics department also is not currently accepting graduate students until it can hire new professors, classics Prof. Dan Garrison said.
Loyola’s decision, although a partial victory for the department, nevertheless will limit the already small classics network in the Chicago area.
“We’re disappointed, but glad to be alive,” said Rev. John Murphy, chairman of Loyola’s classics department. “We’re happy to stay together as an administration unit.”
Sonya Seifert, an NU graduate student in classics who takes classes at Loyola through the Chicago Consortium in Ancient History, said the loss of graduate students at Loyola will have an impact on its undergraduate program.
“The graduate students give a lot to every department,” she said. “I don’t think you can have the same level of instruction without the graduate students’ presence. It’s a loss for all students when there aren’t.”
In March, the announcement of a preliminary recommendation to eliminate the department elicited strong responses from Loyola’s classics department, Loyola alumni and other classicists. Murphy said he believes the strong reaction influenced the administration’s decision.
“The administration would never say it, but they were taken by surprise by the reaction,” Murphy said. “I can’t imagine it didn’t have an effect.”
However, Jones said the reactions were “much ado about nothing.”
“It’s people concerned that a dwindling number of people are interested in classical studies,” Jones said.
But the dwindling number is cause for concern, as the elimination of Loyola’s graduate classics program comes at a time when Northwestern is not accepting graduate students in classics because of faculty limitations, said Garrison.
“At the present time that program is on hold, but the College of Arts and Sciences will replace the faculty,” he said. However, “we may not ever go back to having classics-only graduate students – that’s still unclear.”
But Garrison said he expects the NU classics department will be back to full strength by the end of next year and hopes Loyola’s classics department will continue to hire classics professors rather than let the department fade away.
“We’re glad the crisis has passed and we hope it’s not merely a change of tactics,” Garrison said. “The next big question is, ‘Will they continue to hire?’ One of the ways you can get rid of the department is to not replace professors who retire.”
Current classics graduate students at Loyola will be able to finish their degrees and “if all of a sudden there is a resurgence in the number that graduate with undergraduate degrees and they want graduate degrees, it could be reversed,” Jones said.
As for NU,”we’re still watching (Loyola) and waiting and hoping for the best,” Garrison said. “Only time will tell if Loyola maintains its historical commitment to the study of classics.”
