A Minor Question with Major Implications

Earlier this month, the University of Arkansas Board of Trustees approved the elimination of 39 undergraduate minors at UA Little Rock, including Gender Studies. The decision followed months of scrutiny over low-enrollment programs and a spring legislative fight in which UALR’s appropriation failed three times before university leaders committed to beginning the process of eliminating minors deemed no longer viable, including Gender Studies. Rep. Ryan Rose said that commitment helped secure his support for the appropriation and celebrated the discontinuation as a victory on social media.

There is a legitimate conversation to be had about program viability. Universities should periodically examine enrollment, duplication, cost, and whether academic offerings still serve students well. The list UALR eliminated was broad, ranging from Accounting and Physics to Linguistics, Race and Ethnicity, and Gender Studies.

But Gender Studies became something more than a question of enrollment. Rose also said he did not believe these kinds of courses should be taught and questioned their value compared with fields that might lead to higher-paying employment. That is where a discussion about administrative efficiency begins to intersect with larger questions about political influence, institutional autonomy, and the purpose of higher education.

Working on that piece also forced me to confront an assumption I had carried for years: that earning a bachelor’s degree generally meant completing both a major and a minor.

At UALR, that is no longer broadly required. Most students must complete 120 hours, including their major and the university core, but they can satisfy the expectation of study outside their program either through at least 12 elective hours or by completing a minor.

That raises an interesting question: What exactly is a minor for?

Its value may not be that it prepares a student for a second occupation. Instead, a minor can create a structured opportunity to develop some depth beyond a primary field, explore something complementary, or encounter an entirely different discipline that changes how a student understands the world.

That is why interdisciplinary programs such as Gender Studies or Race and Ethnicity make sense to me as minors. Their purpose is not necessarily vocational. They can connect history, sociology, literature, psychology, philosophy, communication, and other fields around a common set of questions.

I understand why colleges have moved toward greater flexibility. Students and families are making enormous investments. Institutions face pressure to improve completion, reduce excess credits, demonstrate return on investment, and prepare graduates for work.

But flexibility and breadth are not necessarily the same thing.

My degrees are in English. My wife studied Communications and Women’s and Gender Studies. Neither path points neatly toward a single occupation, yet both developed skills we have relied on throughout our careers: writing, interpretation, communication, synthesis, argument, and understanding context.

Now, with our own son approaching college, the practical questions about cost and career preparation feel very real. But so does another one: in an economy being rapidly reshaped by artificial intelligence, is the safest education really the narrowest one?

Perhaps the undergraduate minor still has value precisely because it asks students to venture outside their primary lane. Not every student needs one. But colleges should still create structured space for students to discover a second way of seeing.