The University of Chicago is considering a substantial restructuring of the school’s Division of the Arts and Humanities to cut costs, citing historic financial strain under the Trump administration.
In an email to division faculty in June, Dean Deborah Nelson announced the formation of five advisory committees tasked with identifying areas to reduce spending. Among the considered changes are the consolidation of the division’s 15 departments into eight, fewer language courses and minimum program sizes, according to documents obtained by The Tribune.
“University leadership is looking across the entire institution for ways to significantly reduce costs and increase revenue, while continuing to fulfill our mission,” Nelson wrote in the email.
The faculty-led committees were instructed to propose changes by the end of August. The Chicago Maroon, the university’s student newspaper, first reported on the reorganization efforts Monday.
A U. of C. spokesperson told The Tribune in a statement that similar “focused planning” is taking place across the university.
“This spring and summer, academic leaders across every school and division have been working with faculty and other colleagues to make timely strategic plans for this academic year and years to come,” the spokesperson said.
The move comes as the Trump administration exercises increased scrutiny against colleges and universities across the country, including taking steps to pull funding at elite institutions.
Nelson pointed to cuts to federal research funding, shifting policies surrounding international students and graduate student loans, and general volatility in the American economy as sources of U. of C.’s underlying fiscal pressures. The proposed changes could be enacted for the 2026-27 academic year, she told faculty.
“The status quo is not an option,” Nelson wrote. “To simply copy and paste means the inkpad will run dry, and the Division of the Arts & Humanities will very soon be a pale, indecipherable version of what we once aspired to be.”
Nelson has been communicating with faculty since January about efforts to plan for the division’s future, the university spokesperson said. More than 40 faculty members are participating in the committees.
The committees target five different areas for restructuring and cuts: college teaching, divisional organization, languages, master’s programs and PhD programs. Each group received a list of “questions for exploration,” according to documents reviewed by The Tribune.
Among those questions: “Could we envision an organization with 8 departments?” and “Are there languages we no longer need to teach?”
Faculty members described an environment of confusion and frustration in the division, as speculation swirls about the impact of possible cuts.
Tyler Williams, an associate professor in the Department of South Asian Languages and Civilizations and a member of the languages committee, said much of the group feels unequipped to suggest changes in a limited time frame. Many are hesitant to propose any spending reductions.
“The process is too fast and too uninformed,” Williams said. “We’re being asked to think of suggestions that could affect dozens of jobs, which could affect the way all languages are taught at the University of Chicago.”
Other committees have prioritized identifying changes that would minimize the impact on students. Daisy Delogu, a professor of French literature, was assigned to the PhD programs committee. Her focus has been on finding ways to streamline the PhD process to reduce administrative spending.
“We’ve been asking ourselves, ‘Are these requirements evaluating or advancing students towards certain goals? Do we have milestones in place that are meaningful to students’ learning? Or do they feel kind of like giant hoops?’” Delogu said.
Some faculty members fear the reorganizing efforts could jeopardize the work of small, specialized departments and their professors.
Andrew Ollett, an associate professor and director of graduate studies in the Department of South Asian Languages and Civilizations, specializes in philology and Sanskrit. Because the discipline is so specialized, class sizes are often small — but the department is nationally ranked, Ollett said.
“We have a historic department that has had many luminaries associated with it in the past,” Ollett said. “I’m really shocked to think that we could just cease to exist over the next year, without substantive discussion, without real faculty consultation, without a review of our program.”
In recent years, U. of C. officials have outlined plans to reduce the university’s climbing deficit, which topped $288 million last year. But a slew of federal changes under President Donald Trump have thrown the higher education landscape into uncertainty.
The National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation have frozen or terminated millions of grants, with little communication to researchers and universities. U. of C. relied on $543 million in federal grant funding in 2024, which accounted for 18% of its revenue, according to bond issuance documents.
The school has also faced inquiries from the U.S. Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security on admissions practices and international students.
In her email, Dean Nelson highlighted the threat of an increased tax on the university’s $10 billion endowment under Trump’s “big beautiful bill.” Federal legislators initially proposed a draft that would have cost the school more than $50 million in additional taxes — but the final version of the bill has no impact on U. of C. based on its student-adjusted endowment.
“The looming federal crisis seems to me to have been very substantially diminished or postponed,” said Clifford Ando, the Robert O. Anderson Distinguished Service Professor in the Department of Classics. “So why not put the brakes on and run this process deliberately and carefully?”
It’s not the first structural change in recent months – U. of C. announced the merger of the Division of the Humanities and UChicago Arts in April. That move was a strategic decision to “better reflect and support the incredibly vibrant intellectual and creative community” at U. of C., the spokesperson said.
Nelson framed the committees as a way to ensure thoughtful faculty input wth restructuring. The Division of the Arts and Humanities remains in a “relatively good budget position” heading into the upcoming fiscal year, she said.
“If we do nothing, or if we become divided, we will essentially hand over control of shaping the future of the arts and humanities at UChicago to others outside our division,” Nelson wrote.
Originally Published: July 23, 2025 at 5:35 PM CDT