After one longstanding Emporia State program announced its upcoming end, ESU began public announcements about reinvestments in other areas.
On Wednesday, ESU noted new tenure-track profession positions in ceramics, art history and graphic design along with full-time instructor status for art-in-practice, a staff position for gallery and outreach director and a graduate teaching post for gallery and outreach. Both the ceramics and art historian positions had been eliminated during previous cuts, while the new graphic design position will let ESU introduce motion graphic curriculum.
ESU is also announcing an over $1 million investment in King Hall, including unspecified improvements to Bruder Theatre, heating, ventilation and air conditioning and other general maintenance. Other investments to King Hall could total $4 million to $5 million in the next five years.
3:15 pm Wednesday: ESU Debate among realignment cuts
As Emporia State prepares to announce its adjustments as part of its realignment and reinvestment plan for the future, one of its prestige programs is now part of the past.
The debate program, part of university programming since 1874, is among the cuts, according to the program’s social media. The plan is to finish out the season. Plans for continuing debate without “institutional support” are pending.
The debate program has three national championships, becoming the first university to win both the Cross Examination Debate Association and National Debate Tournament national titles in the 2012-13 academic year. ESU also won the CEDA national crown in 1993.
Meanwhile, ESU has not confirmed whether it is proceeding with announcements to staff or affected students, but the goal is to have announcements no later than Friday.
The realignment focuses on a new focus on Emporia’s “strike zone” programs — nursing, business, education, information management and library sciences — and comes in light of an extended drop in on-campus enrollment since 2017 and periodic, significant budget cuts since 2008. Over 30 faculty and staff received dismissal or termination notices earlier this month, including at least two Roe R Cross professors signifying the university’s best professor of a given year.
