Restructuring of Allied Health Programs
at the University of Louisiana at Monroe
Submitted By:
Sharon Chaney, RDH, BS
Clinical Coordinator,
ULM Dental Hygiene Program
August 7, 2002. James Cofer, President of the University of Louisiana at Monroe, has begun the difficult task of balancing the budget and meeting the needs of the University and the community. Several measures have already been taken and more are planned that have the potential to impact dental hygiene education in Northeast Louisiana. The College of Pharmacy, the College of Nursing and the College of Allied Health and Rehabilitation Professions have been combined into the College of Health Sciences. There is a proposal to have two schools within this College; the School of Nursing and Clinical Sciences and the School of Pharmacy and Science Technology. Dental Hygiene would become a division with a coordinator instead of a department with a department head.
There will be a faculty committee review during the fall semester to determine which programs/departments will be retained and which will be deleted. Those which are essential to the functioning of the University will fall under the first tier. The programs retained in the second tier will be those essential to their College and to the community. A third category will be established for those which are identified as high cost and low enrollment. Programs that fall in this third tier will be considered for elimination. Dental Hygiene is already identified as a high cost low enrollment program, but we hope that we will be considered essential to the community and will fall into the second tier.
We feel funding for allied health programs should be at the same level as similar programs throughout the state, but unfortunately they are not. Medical centers are funded at a much higher rate. At ULM, allied health is funded the same manner as history or other liberal arts programs. This needs to be corrected. State legislators and members of the Boards of Regents and Supervisors need to be contacted to begin to implement a funding plan that is more equitable.
Since the University is still in the process of making changes, nothing has been decided yet. I wanted to inform the dental hygienists around the state about what is happening thus far and hopefully receive their support. This can be shown by contacting state legislators and/or members of the Board of Regents or Supervisors and encouraging them to fund the ULM allied health programs on the same level as the other health programs in the state.
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