Wheaton College reached its goal of admitting almost 600 new students this fall. But the numbers won’t affect the faculty cuts from last year, which proposed a reduction of 13% of the academic division by spring 2025. Most of the cuts, which began as proposals from the Academic Reprioritization Committee (ARC) of faculty representatives, are going forward as planned. “Every chance I get, I ask the administration, what does this mean?” said Tamara Townsend, professor of Spanish and chair of the modern and classical languages department. Her department still faces uncertainty about the fate of one position. “Ok, the numbers are better, does this mean that they’ll reverse any of those decisions? I’m not super optimistic.” (Townsend clarified that she doesn’t believe the administration is ready to make a decision yet, not that they are ignoring the questions.)
