A faculty forum was held at Eastern Illinois University in the Doudna Fine Arts Center Lecture Hall to discuss the upcoming department mergers before the proposal deadline of Nov. 21. 

The forum was moderated by Assistant Professor of Music Composition and Technology Brad Decker and featured a panel of three department chairs: Grant Sterling from history and philosophy, Andrew Mertz from mathematics and computer science and Matthew Gill from the school of communication and journalism. 

Theatre Chair Nick Shaw was planned to be a part of the panel but was absent from the forum. 

Decker began the forum by outlining the current timeline of events for department mergers as described to him by Interim Provost Holly Farley. 

Following the Nov. 21 proposal deadline, deans and chairs will give feedback on the proposals with faculty input before the final merger decisions will be presented by Eastern President Jay Gatrell in January, said Decker. 

According to Decker, likely mergers include economics and business, political science and philosophy, English and world languages, mathematics and physics, and theatre and communication studies. 

Sterling said the political science and philosophy merger was proposed following discussions with the departments, as history was originally meant to merge with philosophy and political science was meant to merge with economics, but political science faculty said they would rather merge with philosophy.  

However, Sterling said mergers would be decided regardless of departmental input. 

“We had a gun at our head,” Sterling said. “As far as I was concerned, it was clear we were going to be forcibly merged if we didn’t agree to be merged.” 

To accommodate for this, Sterling said the proposal made between political science and philosophy doesn’t actually propose a merger but rather asks for another academic year to work out all the details of what a merger could look like. 

“I have no idea whether this was acceptable or not,” he said. “There’s nothing in the process that gives any kind of rules as to what our merger proposals have to look like, or what’s acceptable and what’s unacceptable.” 

Mertz added onto Sterling’s comments by saying he felt like he was trying to guess what upper administration wanted from the mergers. 

“If I guess correct, I think they’ll say, ‘Yes, this is what we want to do,’” Mertz said. “If I do not, then I think I may be told what is gonna happen.” 

Gill said he thought his department would be immune as it had already experienced the merger between communication and journalism. 

Despite this, Gill said a merger between the school of communication and journalism and the theatre department could provide more opportunities for students to collaborate and pick up a double major. 

Faculty in attendance at the forum asked questions of the panelists and expressed their concerns for different aspects of department mergers. 

One topic raising concern was what would happen if a department chair were to evaluate a faculty member’s work if they were in a department separate from the one they were evaluating. 

Mertz said something like this is possible but would depend on how the chair positions would be split up, which varies depending on the merger. 

Another concern was how students would be impacted by the mergers. Gill said he has seen positive reception regarding the school of communication and journalism and theatre department merger. 

“Students don’t care who’s evaluating who and who’s doing what. They care about what’s going on in the classroom,” Gill said. “I think the cornerstone of what we’re doing is saying, ‘Here is what would be good for the students.’” 

Sace Elder, a history professor, said after the forum that she liked how thoughtful the department chairs were during the forum but was disturbed by the lack of communication from administration to the departments. 

“They don’t seem to be asking for input from faculty and department chairs,” Elder said. 

The lack of communication is something the panel unanimously agreed on during the forum, with Decker describing the situation as constantly moving goalposts. 

According to the panel, none of them have seen any definitive plan from administration regarding mergers. 

Sterling said it distressed him to have the impression that administration didn’t care about the effects of the mergers so long as it saved them money. 

“There is no picture of how these things fit together because they’re totally separate decisions made without any consideration of how they interact with one another or how they impact programs, or faculty, or students or whatever,” he said. 

Decker agreed with Sterling’s statement, describing it as a hazy environment to make hard decisions in without knowing the results or repercussions of any actions taken.