‘Decimation’ of Utrecht humanities heavily criticised

As of 2026, the Utrecht University Bachelor’s programmes in German, French, Italian, Celtic, Religious Studies and Islam & Arabic will not be allowed to admit any new students. The Faculty of Humanities has a budget deficit of 7 million euros this year. If policy were to remain unchanged, that amount would rise to 13 million in 2027, according to Dean Thomas Vaessens.

The financial situation of his faculty has already been unstable for years, reads a press release of the university, “because we maintain a range of programmes that have become unaffordable over time”. Programmes that take in fewer than 25 students will no longer be kept afloat. The nationally unique Celtic programme only drew two students this year. For the French programme, this number was sixteen. The other four drew student numbers somewhere in between. Forced redundancies aren’t ruled out.

Transition plan

Together with the university board, the dean has written a ‘transition plan’ for a new interdisciplinary setup of undergraduate education within humanities. “This will make knowledge from these fields of study accessible to a larger group of students and keep research and expertise available to society.”

The plan was discussed confidentially in the faculty council last Friday and shared with all students and staff on Monday. They were rather shocked, reports news platform DUB. Religious Studies coordinator Eric Ottenheijm finds it incomprehensible that the six degree programmes themselves weren’t involved in drawing up the plan. According to him, it’s entirely unclear what the desired connection between the six programmes and other disciplines will look like.

Disheartening

In an opinion piece on DUB, Birgit Meyer, professor of Religious Sciences, KNAW Academy Professor and winner of the Spinoza Prize, says it’s “alarming” that the transition plan is launched in a politically turbulent time. “Are administrators aware they are contributing to – indeed – the decimation of the humanities?”

She finds it “a disheartening realisation that, after having just been informed, we are already being dragged into a timeline from which we are no longer allowed to deviate”, and she misses the exact financial underpinning of the plan. She hopes the participatory bodies will be able to thwart it. After that, solutions can be sought together, she suggests.

Leiden and Groningen

The Leiden Faculty of Humanities will also be undergoing a major overhaul, as indicated in faculty board plans revealed by Mare two weeks ago. The board wants to terminate the Bachelor’s programmes in African Studies and Latin American Studies and merge the Chinese, Japanese, Korean and South and Southeast Asian Studies degree programmes into a new Bachelor’s programme: Asian Studies. French, German and Italian are to merge into a Bachelor’s programme in European Languages and Cultures.

The University of Groningen already decided to combine all of its European language programmes into one broad Bachelor’s programme years ago. In Mare, dean of the Faculty of Arts Thony Visser acknowledges that slightly less language education is provided than in independent language programmes. Nonetheless, she feels the language level of the students is good enough to be admitted to a Master’s programme or teacher training programme.

HOP, Hein Cuppen

Translation: Taalcentrum-VU