Another queen sacrifice might be in the works, this time in Virginia

How can a non-profit respond to financial stresses? In non-profit higher education one response is to cut back on services and staff.

When a college or university does this, I call it a “queen sacrifice.” That’s a term from chess, when a player gives up their most powerful piece — the queen — in a desperate move to win the game. On campuses, tenure-track faculty often play this role, given their governance power and the long-term protections tenure provides, compared with adjunct faculty and all staff members. I’ve been tracking academic queen sacrifices for a long time now; click here for examples.

Today’s instance might come from Virginia’s Marymount University, which just announced a series of program cuts. Programs the board wants to end include, according to Inside Higher Ed, bachelor’s “majors in art, economics, English, history, mathematics, philosophy, secondary education, sociology, and theology and religious studies, and an M.A. in English and humanities.” The Washington Post adds that “A BA program in economics will be eliminated, but the BS in that field will remain.” (The changes haven’t appeared on the university’s majors web page yet.)

The reason cited for this move: low enrollment in those programs. As president Becerra explains, “MU cannot financially sustain offering majors with consistently low enrollment, low graduation rates, and lack of potential for growth.”