St. Ambrose University Cuts Two Theater Majors From its Program

St. Ambrose University has cute the two majors associated with its theater program, Quad-City Times reports. The two majors included theater, and secondary speech and theater teaching. The university also offered a theater minor.

The university has confirmed that the two majors will no longer be available, but some level of theater education will continue.

"Following a review process and recommendation, the university made a decision to close the theater major at St. Ambrose," said Paul Koch, SAU's provost and vice president for academics and student affairs, in a statement. "Provisions will be made for all current students majoring in theater to complete their major at St. Ambrose University, and current tenured faculty in the department are being retained."

First-year and transfer students enrolling at SAU in Fall 2021 may not select theater as a major.

A petition was started on change.org by senior speech and theater teaching major, Erika Seabloom.

"As disappointing as this decision is, I cannot say that I am surprised that the board of trustees went ahead with cutting the theater major," Seabloom wrote. "The reality is that St. Ambrose is not the liberal arts school I thought it was. The fact that the arts are what was on the chopping block while new athletic programs were added and funding for an already existing program was increased, it became evident to me that St. Ambrose does not truly believe in the liberal arts philosophy it likes to tout so much."

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