With just under three weeks left before the first day of the semester, University of Montana English education majors received an email from their advisers forcing them to re-work their schedules.
The email, sent on Aug. 8, was sent to students taking Professor Jeff Ross’ required English education courses in the fall and said it was canceled, but provided no reason why. Ren Shepherd, a theater education and English education double major taking Ross’ course, “Creative drama in the English class,” said they were frustrated at the vague and late communication.
“I just wish that they would be a little more transparent with what’s going on,” Shepherd said. “I think that’s the most frustrating thing, where you’re like, ‘Well is my program being cut or do we really just not have the professor.’ I think also, it’s a little late in the game to make me change my entire schedule.”
According to Eric Reimer, interim chair of the English teaching department, Ross’ contract had expired mid-summer and administration decided not to renew it. Without Ross, who also directed the English Teaching program at UM, undergraduate students are left to find replacement courses and Reimer said the Master of English Teaching is no longer accepting new students. Reimer said the program hasn’t been officially cut yet, because it hasn’t gone through the proper processes, but he believes UM seeks to terminate it in the future.
Dave Kuntz, spokesperson for the University, said he has recieved no indication from administration that the master’s program will be cut.
Reimer said students still currently in the program are upset about not having Ross as their director but will still be able to finish their degrees with replacement courses that fulfill the same requirements.
Shepherd said they chose theater education as a major because of their passion for working with kids and dreams to be a high school theater teacher. Theater education majors are also required to take up another minor or major for extra, post-graduation employment opportunities, which no other education majors are required to do. Shepherd added English education as their second degree.
To make money to pay for school and master their craft, Shepherd works at a local daycare and substitute teaches.
“I would love to be a high school theater teacher or English teacher as well,” Shepherd said. “I want to work with kids. I can’t imagine a life where I’m not working with kids.”
Reimer said the decision not to renew Ross’ contract had nothing to do with his performance, but more with the lack of financial resources and staffing.
“The teaching program has been under scrutiny for a while,” Reimer said. “With constant budget problems and recent fixations on data and national trends, there’s always questions.”
Last spring, UM launched an annual program evaluation process named the Academic Affairs Playbook. The playbook uses both numerical data as well as staff interviews about a program to make decisions on how that program should be handled in the future.
In the quantitative analysis released last spring, UM ranked all 71 undergraduate programs on the measure of enrollment and graduation rates. The English major as a whole ranked 10 out of 71 undergraduate programs. The elementary education degree ranked in the top five, but the early childhood education degree came in at 50 of 71. Data for just the English teaching concentration was not released.
According to Education Week, the number of education degree graduates from 2008 to 2009 compared to 2018 to 2019 has dropped by almost 30%.
Reimer reiterated both students and faculty were disheartened to learn about Ross not returning.
“He was doing everything right, an excellent teacher and an excellent director,” Reimer said. “Our first reaction was heartbreak.”
Sarah Hibbard, also a theater and English education double major, said when she received the email, she was deeply upset and immediately messaged a group chat, which included many English education majors, to learn what happened. There, she learned of the news.
“Jeff Ross was a fantastic professor, and I loved him. I know that everyone really loved him,” Hibbard said. “That was why it was a really crazy shock that he wasn’t coming back.”
When the Montana Kaimin reached out to Ross for an interview he replied in an email stating, “I’m sorry to hear that some of our students have been negatively affected by program changes. These are talented, empathetic, accomplished students and I care about them deeply,” Ross wrote. “However, from my perspective, now outside UM’s excellent English Department, there really isn’t a ‘my side’ of the story to tell.”
Undergraduate students needing one of Ross’ classes were offered four replacement options that would fill the same requirement. The classes offered were “Diversity in Media,” “Social Media and Audience,” “Creatively Exploring Artificial Intelligence” and “Journalism and American Society.” Shepherd said they struggled to see the relevance of the substitute classes to their major and was scared to take two of them because they were upper-division journalism classes — a subject they’ve never studied.
Shepherd said they were stressed about the late notice and was worried about finding a class that would be a good fit in their schedule.
“Not only do I have to replace it in a way that fits in my classes, but I now need to change my work availability,” Shepherd said. “Everything in my life was dependent on this schedule being consistent, and so having such a late notice on a whole class not being available was like, ‘Oh, did we not have all summer to figure this out?’”
Shepherd ended up choosing the class on artificial intelligence, but said it was only because the course was online, not interfering with their other classes or work. Hibbard was given the same replacement options as Shepherd but decided to take the social media class because she said it was the closest fit. Hibbard also said she was still disappointed because it’s not the same as taking a class specifically aimed at educating future teachers.
Kuntz said administration letting professors’ contracts expire is a fairly common practice.
“The largest proportion of staffing transitions is, somebody is not fired, they don’t retire, there’s not a resignation, it’s just that the contract is not renewed,” Kuntz said. “It might be related to a fiscal reason, or it might be related to, ‘Hey, we have similar classes in this other department, and we’re trying to make our academic load for students easier and more streamlined.”
Shepherd said when they learned what happened with Ross’ contract they were worried that UM would decide to begin cutting undergraduate education programs.
Kuntz said despite the situation with Ross, students do not need to worry about losing their program.
“Students shouldn’t worry at all about the program,” Kuntz said. “The state of Montana has a critical teacher shortage right now, and so there’s not a circumstance in which the University would make any sort of drastic changes to that program that would limit our ability to produce high quality English teachers that can serve your regional high schools, middle schools, etc.”
Although the undergraduate program may still be safe, students like Shepherd and Hibbard are upset by the loss of Ross, the master’s program and the shoddy replacement courses offered.
“I feel really sad about it,” Hibbard said. “I am here to take English teaching classes from an English teacher who’s supposed to teach me how to be a teacher, and I really don’t think there’s a way to substitute for that.”