Their programs are shrinking, and by a lot.

You know what programs are thriving? Social Work. Communications. Creative Writing. Biology.

To trigger retrenchment.

I am imagine how that went, having listened to some engineers and MBA's talk about the entire rest of education.

I am sorry you were subject to that. I sincerely hope your university gives that idiocy the attention -- and scorn -- it deserves.

Having watched various educational institutes deal with this sort of thing, I'm aware that "hoping it's treated like the dumb and insulting idea it is, and telling those departments that it's the shrinking departments that face cuts due to less demand" is optimistic.

Is the root issue shrinking out-of-state student enrollment? If so, I'd watch the Math and Computer Sciences departments too.

I know our state university recently took steps to hedge against that risk, despite out-of-state students being capped at 30%

Is this something your actual university is considering? If so, what are they smoking?

Cutting in the areas that are stable or growing is stupid -- it won't fix the problem in the shrinking departments, and it will degrade the university reputation AND cost you more students in short order.

Greedy, short-sighted, STUPID.

Kinda what I'd expect from MBAs.

My wife’s university has been going through less severe but fights with a similar breakdown. I think a lot of STEM scholars have lost perspective and spend too much time around toxic media feeding their egos. It’s so awful.

And I am trans.

In *this* America.

For the record, our enrollment in Arts and Sciences is basically stable.

None of this is either a complete nor entirely accurate representation of the situation. A complete and accurate accounting would require a full-length essay to explain for anyone not in academia. I'm not doing that in a twitter-but-without-nazis platform.