Opinion: With proposed program cuts, UNC Asheville loses its liberal arts distinction

When UNC Asheville Chancellor Kimberly van Noort announced in mid-June that she would eliminate or reduce five academic majors to clear a $6 million deficit, there was controversy, confusion and consternation.

The programs she targeted were Ancient Mediterranean Studies — formerly known as Classics — Drama, Philosophy and Religious Studies. Languages and Literatures, formerly known as Foreign Languages, will shrink the number of languages the university offers.One concern was what impact van Noort’s decision would have on UNCA’s mission. Of the 17 institutions of the University of North Carolina, UNCA has a unique role. It is “the designated liberal arts and sciences campus in the UNC System.”  Since the idea of the liberal arts grew from the philosophers of ancient Greece and Rome, where the "artes liberales" were the education suitable for a free citizen, could you have a university built on this tradition without a Department of Philosophy or a Department of Ancient Mediterranean Studies?There was confusion because “liberal arts and sciences,” as we now have broadened the term, means different things to different people. How do we agree on a common definition?And what about that fraught word “liberal,” which has come to connote so many things to so many people?We can clear up some confusion about the term “liberal arts” by looking at the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education, which categorizes 3,939 of the nation’s colleges and universities, including those in the UNC system.Would you be surprised to learn that UNC Asheville is not what Carnegie calls a Liberal Arts I institution?Liberal Arts I colleges and universities focus on the experience of undergraduates in a residential setting. They are smaller than the big research universities that offer graduate programs. Their faculties do research, but they make teaching and mentoring students their priority. They emphasize a strong campus community. Their students are engaged outside the classroom, often in the larger community.Would you be surprised to know that a Liberal Arts I institution can offer 50% of its majors in professional and technical fields like public health, engineering and business administration? But doesn’t this exactly describe UNC Asheville?Indeed it does, but UNC Asheville is no longer a Liberal Arts I institution because the Carnegie Classification of Higher Education dropped the "Liberal Arts I" category way back in 2005. Carnegie’s new framework now gives a broader picture of schools beyond just the highest degree they offer.UNC Asheville now fits Carnegie’s category of basic baccalaureate college, with an arts and sciences focus and a handful of professional and graduate programs. Carnegie says UNCA is selective about its students, who are mostly four-year, full-time undergraduates who live on campus.

Why did Carnegie drop the Liberal Arts I designation? I suspect it was that word “liberal,” which in many minds can’t be divorced from its implication of someone on the far left of the political spectrum.Is UNC Asheville still the “the designated liberal arts and sciences campus of the UNC System?” So far it is, and it still claims a unique role in North Carolina public higher education. It just needs to make the case that a “liberal education” here means a liberating education.Which arts and sciences majors UNC Asheville can offer depends on many complex demographic, economic and social forces. It definitely needs to increase enrollment. That’s what it is wrestling with right now.How well it offers its arts and sciences undergraduate experience depends on the imagination and energy of its leaders and its faculty. As it approaches its 100th anniversary, I hope UNC Asheville stays true to its 1927 roots as a college for the community. And I hope it stays true to the aspirations it had for excellence and for statewide and national visibility when it became a campus of the University of North Carolina in 1969 with a distinctive liberal arts and sciences mission.Arnold Wengrow came to UNC Asheville in 1970 to begin the Theatre of the University of North Carolina at Asheville. He was the drama department’s first chair and retired as Professor Emeritus of Drama in 1998. He co-wrote "If the Song Doesn’t Work, Change the Dress," the memoirs of Broadway costume designer Patricia Zipprodt, to be published by Bloomsbury in 2025.