After an announcement that Baker University was eliminating its political science program, emotions ranging from anger to disappointment and confusion flooded the campus community.

“It’s a terrible loss,” Bruce Anderson, associate professor of political science, said. “It will impact the university in all sorts of both seen and unseen ways. There will be a number of unintended consequences.”

Anderson’s faculty position was eliminated along with the political science program. He will, however, continue his role as head tennis coach next year as well as assist in the athletic department with game administration. Anderson will also oversee the collaborative classes the School of Education offers at area high schools.

Anderson was a member of the joint committee that recommended which programs at Baker should be cut.

“The committee made a recommendation … that political science and my position in it be eliminated,” he said. “This was accepted by the president and the president then took that to the education committee of the board. The education committee of the board approved it, and then it was put out for a vote by the rest of the Board of Trustees, who also approved it.”

As a member of the committee, Anderson said he excused himself from discussions focused on his own program, but said it had become relatively apparent early on that the political science program was going to be up for discussion.

“I think it’s a tragic, tragic, awful thing for Baker,” Anderson said. “Political science has turned out more students in PhD programs than any other program on campus … and that has been a regular thing for the past decade. “

Student Senate President Patti Greenbaum sat in the Harter Union Lobby all day Monday asking students to sign a petition that showed they didn’t want the political science program to be eliminated.

“In political science, there may not be a strong number of students in the department, but the quality of student that it produces is remarkable,” she said. “It would be a travesty to just eliminate the major that creates such students and gives Baker a great name.”

Greenbaum plans to address the issue at Tuesday night’s Baker University Student Senate meeting where University President Pat Long will host a question and answer session. She then plans to address the Board of Trustees while they are on campus Friday.

“It’s great timing,” Greenbaum said. “This is something that needs to be addressed because one of the biggest things (the administration) said was that academic programs would be one of the last things to be affected, but you’ve got an entire department that could disappear. I mean, what colleges don’t have a political science major? I really want to know.”

Senior Kendra Hanson, a political science major, will also look to Tuesday’s student senate meeting for answers.

“I just don’t understand how we’re at this point where we have to be cutting major programs, and I just don’t understand why absolutely nothing else can be cut,” she said. “Why was this program cut ahead of other majors? Just because it may not produce as many graduates as say the business major? Because the graduates it does produce have also been very successful.”

Hanson said hearing that the political science program had been cut was hard to believe.

“We found out in senior (seminar) on Thursday and I was obviously shocked. I just wasn’t expecting it,” she said. “I was shocked and then I was disappointed and now I’m just upset that this program that has done so much for me is now just being cut, and I don’t think it’s the right move.”

It’s not clear how students in the political science program will be transitioned, Anderson said, but he said he plans to do “whatever it takes” to make sure students get transitioned into the areas that they want to be transitioned to.

“We owe them something,” he said. “Baker made a promise to those kids when they came through the doors and (Long) backed it up before this process ever started. She said that if any programs were cut, we will do everything in our power to make sure that these kids are served by Baker, and I’m going to make sure that promise is kept. If that means that I have to give independent studies without compensation … I will do that.”

Political science has been a part of Baker University’s academic programs since 1898 and Anderson finds it difficult to believe that a liberal arts institution can get by without teaching American government.

"Government touches everyone on this campus, on way or another," he said. "I can tell you over the experience of 15 years of teaching freshmen, they don't get it in high school, they really don't. They have to get it here, and if they're not getting it here, where are they getting it?"<br/>