five faculty advisory committees<\/a> in June tasked with identifying cost-cutting measures across the division. But she said the decision to pause doctorate program admissions did not come from any of those groups.<\/p>\nWhitney Cox, a professor in the Department of South Asian Languages and Civilizations and a member of the Ph.D. programs committee, said the group had unanimously decided that any pause in admissions should apply to all programs, rather than singling out or prioritizing some departments over others.<\/p>\n
Cox described a climate of confusion and frustration among faculty.<\/p>\n
\u201cI found this decision to be extremely opaque and disappointing, and it\u2019s hard for me to have much confidence in the process going forward,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Graduate students will continue to be admitted in the departments of art history, cinema and media studies, East Asian languages and civilizations, English language and literature, linguistics, music and philosophy. Nelson did not specify the extent to which the Ph.D. cohort sizes would be reduced.<\/p>\n
Cliff Ando, a professor in the departments of classics and history, called the changes \u201ca betrayal of the values of the university.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m shocked and dismayed,\u201d Ando said. \u201cThe committee specifically recommended that the dean not implement a policy that would favor some departments and disfavor others, and the dean overrode the faculty recommendation.\u201d<\/p>\n
The decision on which departments would continue to admit students was based on the number of applicants, undergraduate demand, tenure track and career placements, Nelson said in the email.<\/p>\n
Cox, who studies the literary and intellectual history of southern India, said that his department is small because it is specialized \u2014 but that doesn\u2019t discount its value.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s with a certain amount of pride and satisfaction that I say that we\u2019re the best department in our field, certainly in North America, arguably in the world,\u201d Cox said.<\/p>\n
Faculty advisory committees are continuing to finalize their cost-cutting proposals for the division. The five groups are slated to present their recommendations to university officials at the end of August.<\/p>\n
In addition to Ph.D. programs, the targeted areas include college teaching, division organization, languages and master\u2019s programs.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs dean, there is nothing more important to me than ensuring our long-term excellence in training scholars and artists who will help shape the future of the work to which we have dedicated our professional lives,\u201d Nelson wrote.<\/p>\n
Originally Published: August 15, 2025 at 7:00 PM CDT<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The University of Chicago will pause admissions for \u201ca small number\u201d of Ph.D. and master\u2019s programs across several…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":149529,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5124],"tags":[74271,87980,960,5404,30399,77440,50014,17073,407,5386,1818,2862,77441,31887,35531,87981,4010,1370,728,721,24563,5535,50,87982,56957,87983,87984,87985,17075,1398],"class_list":{"0":"post-149528","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago","8":"tag-brown-county","9":"tag-champaign-county","10":"tag-chicago","11":"tag-cook-county","12":"tag-dane-county","13":"tag-decatur-county","14":"tag-dekalb-county","15":"tag-dupage-county","16":"tag-education","17":"tag-il","18":"tag-illinois","19":"tag-indiana","20":"tag-jo-daviess-county","21":"tag-kane-county","22":"tag-kendall-county","23":"tag-kenosha-county","24":"tag-lake-county","25":"tag-latest-headlines","26":"tag-local-news","27":"tag-marion-county","28":"tag-mchenry-county","29":"tag-milwaukee-county","30":"tag-news","31":"tag-peoria-county","32":"tag-porter-county","33":"tag-racine-county","34":"tag-sangamon-county","35":"tag-waukesha-county","36":"tag-will-county","37":"tag-wisconsin"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115036393824471594","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149528","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=149528"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149528\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/149529"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=149528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=149528"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=149528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}