Last week I tweeted a thread about #utulsa’s drastic “True Commitment” plan, unveiled on 4/11. This led to an outpouring of support from those in #highered who have seen similar debacles unfold at their own institutions. Time for a thread about the campus response so far. 1/12 National and local news have included mix of support & opposition to the plan. I’ll focus here on circumstances actually happening on campus rather than PR battle unfolding in the media. Obviously, admin has resources & consultants to help them gain upper hand in PR battle. 2/12

Lots of people are paying attention to @utulsa’s disastrous rollout of its cartoonishly bad plan to eviscerate the liberal arts. This is where my research and my life as a scholar intersect. Time for a brief explainer on what it means to “neoliberalize” a university. 1/n The past few years have been tumultuous ones for colleges across the country. Many will close in the wake of a “higher ed bubble.” So colleges market themselves. College involves many different sorts of markets that can complicate the educational mission of a university. 2/n

Due to years of financial mismanagement, my university, #utulsa, has been forced into some major structural changes. All day today, as if part of some perverse ceremonial unleashing of fury, admin is holding meetings to let us know of our fate. 1/n The first news to drop today is that lots of MA programs are going away, as well as some undergraduate programs. Among these programs: Philosophy. Yes, PHILOSOPHY. I had heard of other universities making this truly idiotic move. Now it is happening here.