A proposal to restructure Missouri Southern was brought to the Faculty Senate meeting Nov. 4. Though it is a first draft, according to Dr. Marsi Archer, several members of faculty pointed out concerns they had with the proposal.

It is proposed that The Chart be moved to the English department, which as Dr. Natalie Grecu stated, acting as a voice for the communication department, would be a loss for the communication students as it is intertwined with the curriculums for the department. 

Not only would the students lose the valuable experience, according to Grecu, the department would also lose an advisor which would bring the department down to only five. 

“It’s not the move to the college of business communication and technology, it’s the move about The Chart and that severs our department substantially. …we’re worried about seeing another component of our department being lost,” said Grecu. “Also, we as a department unanimously reject the proposal to lose it to the English department… we are just incredibly disappointed with the lack of transparency and inclusion in this decision….”

Another issue that members of the faculty had with the proposal is merging international and political affairs with modern languages as there was confusion to the thought behind the merge.

“We even feel like there are other departments that would be better for modern languages… also we are not really sure on what the rational behind on trying to merge our department and IPA… from the standpoint of how that would improve our department… We welcome the merging but we certainly think that IPA isn’t the right one,” said Dr. Rubén Galve Rivera. 

As of now, Archer is unsure of how they will move forward with the proposal, but she has said that the concerns addressed were both new and some she has already heard and that the board will take them into consideration when revising the proposal.

 “…we are not proposing a whole lot of physical relocations, but structurally more closely tied so that it would enhance efficiencies and synergies and again particularly for the sake of the students, what would make it easier for the students to navigate through this environment,” said Dr. Paula Carson.