Last month, Suzanne Smith, the president of SUNY Potsdam, made a difficult decision regarding the future of the university. With tears in her eyes, she announced the elimination of 14 academic programs across a wide variety of subject areas. While this may come as a surprise to many, the reasons for this grim announcement were brewing well beforehand.  

SUNY Potsdam, established in 1816, is the oldest SUNY school in the state. It reached its peak number of students around 2012, with a total of around 4,400 students, mostly undergraduates, with a few hundred in postgraduate programs. In the past decade, enrollment has declined by a staggering 43 percent, with the total student population now at around 2,500. For reference, Cazenovia College, a school in central New York that recently closed its doors, had a similar decline in enrollment in the decade preceding its closure.   

The school now faces a significant budget deficit of around $9 million. Despite this, it remains a significant part of the St. Lawrence County economy, generating $350 million in economic activity. Cuts in faculty and staff have occurred long before the elimination of 14 departments; the total number of full-time employees at the university has fallen from 791 in the 2012-2013 academic year to 609 during the last academic year. Aside from the budget cuts to departments, two buildings on campus could potentially be partially or fully closed: Dunn Hall, which features a dance theatre, and all but one wing of Knowles Hall.   

Facing pressure from John King, the chancellor of the SUNY system, President Smith of Potsdam made the reluctant decision to eliminate 14 programs, which officials say represent 6% of the SUNY Potsdam student population. The Bachelor of Arts undergraduate programs in Theater, Spanish, Philosophy, Physics, French, Dance, Arts Management and Art History will be phased out. Additional programs being removed include Music Performance, Biochemistry and the dual degree programs of Chemistry and Public Health.  

It is worth noting that because of the elimination of the French and Spanish programs at SUNY Potsdam, there is now no foreign language programs offered at the school.   

Michael Popovic, who teaches in the Politics department at SUNY Potsdam and who is currently teaching the writing-intensive international relations class here at SLU, was asked about his thoughts regarding Potsdam’s downsizing. “I think a lot of people recognize that having a longstanding budget deficit is not a situation that can be sustained due to the reduced funding that universities are receiving from the state. On the one hand, downsizing can reduce the budget deficit, but on the other hand, it could in turn, reduce enrollment. I am hoping that in the future, these cuts will not reduce the number of students who apply to Potsdam,” Popovic said. Hopefully, the Potsdam student population can stabilize amidst these dramatic changes, and the university won’t need to continually downsize. Only time will tell…