The Carillon, the University of Regina student newspaper (full disclosure: I was its editor-in-chief for two years), is generally a pretty good outlet to defer to on post-secondary issues in Regina and, indeed, the province in general. Yesterday’s op-ed on the theatre department’s shift from the fine arts faculty to the arts faculty is no exception:

A serious “administration knows best” mentality is permeating the entire discussion about the future of this university and leaving students left out of the loop. It is unclear to what degree the university is consulting with “student groups”, but if URSU or the CFS has been in discussion with the university, they are not publicizing it very well. Considering the academic review is presented as such a huge change in university policy towards its programming, it would be nice as a student to be able to see everything that is being discussed behind closed board room doors.

The problem is not so much that the university has determined to change the theatre program into an arts degree or that there are changes to the political science honours degree, but the way in which it has determined to go about informing students of the changes that are being proposed. For all I know, these changes were absolutely necessary and will benefit the departments and the university as a whole. But there was absolutely no rationale provided for the decision beyond the pre-approved, positive buzzwords from the master plan like “sustainability”, “flexibility”, and “streamline”.