Low enrollment leads Higher Ed Coordinating Board to axe program

In November, the Texas High Education Coordinating Board unanimously voted to eliminate the MSU’s physics department.

The decision was for the sake of logistics after THECB flagged the department as being a “low-producing” degree program.

Starting in the Fall of 2011, physics, chemistry and geosciences were combined into one department.

The physics department will be supported until August 13, 2018. The minor in physics will still be offered, said Dr. Randal Hallford, interim chair for the new department.

However, the change will have no financial impact on the university, according to President Dr. Jesse Rogers.

“The university will not save one dollar,” Rogers said.

The decision, said Hallford, won’t affect physics majors who were declared in the fall of 2011 from completing their degrees. Students will have this seven-year interval to complete their degree.

The summer graduation date for the last students with a bachelor of science in physics degree will have to be before August 13, 2018.

Traditionally, physics is one the majors, which has a low enrollment as, compared to other programs across campus, said Dr. Rodney Cate, interim dean for the College of Science and Mathematics.

“Even though the numbers of graduates with a B.S. degree in physics is low, this discipline plays a fundamental support role in nearly all of the areas requiring a science or engineering background,” Cate said.

Rogers said the dropping of Midwestern’s physics program and other universities’ physics programs was ill advised and unwise.

“Physics programs at any university are never large,” Rogers said. “It is a subject that represents the foundation to the student of all other sciences and engineering at a minimum.”

Rogers said the dropping of the physics program would be a loss to the economy, to the development of scientific knowledge and to Midwestern.

“Our nation’s economy and scientific community do not need large numbers of physicists but they are dependent upon a few well-educated people in this area,” Rogers said. “If the nation’s universities were to apply the same standard to all physics programs that was applied to our program, 700 physics programs would be dropped.”

MSU is currently working through the Texas Electronic Coalition of Physics to be able to pool teaching responsibilities among other state universities which have had their physics programs cut.

“It is hoped that pooling resources with other schools, the upper division advanced courses can be taught through distance education and that the physics B.S. degree can be reinstated,” Rogers said.