San Francisco State University student Armin Abolhassani originally transferred to the school as an English major but switched to Philosophy and Religion in Spring 2023. Just three weeks ago he declared a new major, this time solely in philosophy because he wouldn’t be able to graduate on time next semester.

In an Academic Senate meeting held last month, it was announced that the Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy and Religion would be suspended. As a result, Abolhassani said that he and other students would have to complete master’s seminars to earn their degrees.

“I was only able to take one core requirement because none of the core requirements were being taught anymore,” he said. “So I’m now missing two religion requirements. And basically, to graduate, I would have needed to take two whole masters seminars next semester but they only offer one masters seminar in religion every semester — it would just be impossible.”

In the wake of SFSU’s dwindling student enrollment and financial strains, some departments are at risk of cuts and students’ futures are left on hold. Specific classes and degrees could face the possibility of cancellation, forcing students to change majors completely even a semester before graduation. 

“The [enrollment] numbers are severe and the ordinary philosophy degree program has been shrunk as a consequence,” said Kyle Dupen, philosophy and religion faculty lecturer. “A number of units have been lopped off also as a consequence of this because, well, the money just isn’t there to support it. It’s really a shame.”

Dupen, who has worked at the university for three decades, said the philosophy and religion program hasn’t always been deficient in students and resources but has followed this path slowly over the past ten years. 

In Spring 2014, the program had 30 enrolled students and reached single digits for the first time during Fall 2020 with 9 students. Apart from potential influences of the pandemic, the program continued this downward trend in Fall 2022 and currently has only 5 enrolled students.

An email sent to SFSU faculty earlier this month stated that the campus can look forward to a 7.95% budget cut, leaving President Lynn Mahoney to begin the process of shared governance by initiating the Academic Program Discontinuance Policy #S24-177. This leaves the university to decide which courses and instructors are going to be cut. 

With lower enrollment throughout the entire school, there are fewer students to fill up seats in each class. According to an anonymous faculty member, the Philosophy department’s inability to reach its target enrollment numbers is a reason for suspensions in specialized majors.

“Given our target numbers, we were not going to be able to put on all the classes we needed to put on in order to meet the requirements for all of our majors,” said the faculty member, who asked to remain anonymous out of fear of retaliation. “I think that’s a big loss to students.”

However, low enrollment is only one contributing factor to the program’s suspension. The faculty member also said the department’s faculty and heads finalized their decision because it wouldn’t be fair to offer a program with such drastic course cuts.

“Part of another reason why we suspended the major was because we didn’t think we were going to have the opportunity to offer the classes to the students needed to complete the major,” the faculty member said.

On a positive note, the program’s temporary suspension will last about three years. Current philosophy and religion students can finish off their major during the suspension but with only one or two courses being offered each semester, students must take class substitutions to meet graduation requirements.

Some might question the importance of a religion-centered program but Abolhassani said not only the courses but also the professors offer “mind-blowing” conversation and thinking. After taking classes and working as his teacher’s assistant, Abolhassani said Dupen inspired his interest in the major.

“You really feel the weight of how he talks about it and I’ve never had a professor like him,” Abolhassani said about Dupen. “It’s like his passion for everything is just so amazing. I feel like when you add religion into this, you’re able to take those ideas a lot further.”

Dupen was laid off last fall but “brought back right before the [2024] spring semester” began. Unfortunately, this year’s cuts to the department’s faculty reached him for a second round, and according to Abolhassani, Dupen won’t be returning.

To protest future cuts, Abolhassani started attending meetings with “Philosophy Students Against the Cuts,” a popular committee advocating for the restoration of the philosophy department as a whole.

Since its first meeting on Oct. 29, the committee of about eight students has begun a petition to reinstate the department to its original settings as of Spring 2023. The petition includes maintaining and bringing back faculty, restoring the department’s budget and providing transparency of the budget.

One of the committee’s organizers, Asia Baclay, an SFSU grad student and teaching associate, said there is an obvious gap between the department she knew as a student and the one now as a teacher.

“The amount of classes offered compared from then till now,” Baclay said. “It’s like no more philosophy and religion classes are offered at all next semester. Whereas I was able to graduate with the original amount of credits and requirements at the time.”

As a product of the philosophy and religion program, Baclay said she notices discrepancies in the amount of classes taught and enrollment numbers.

“The cuts are not proportional with enrollment,” she said. “So like one professor that has four classes is Jamie Lindsay. Every classroom is full. It brings money to the school. But he has like five less classes so far planned for next semester than this semester. So they’re cutting classes to bring money to the school.”

To change the mindset of “picking and choosing of what’s going to save money for the school overall,” the committee plans on canvassing their petition to philosophy classes and school officials to add to their already 150 signatures, Baclay said. 

As the philosophy department awaits news about its future, Dupen said the school will miss the opportunity to become a channel for learning and growth.

“All of these things are very central to having a broader and more expansive sense of what it means to be alive,” Dupen said. “And that’s what’s being lost. The college, it seems, is no longer being seen as a vehicle for the expansion of the human experience.”