Overview

• The university will reduce Ph.D. cohort sizes in seven Arts & Humanities departments, including Art History, Cinema & Media Studies, East Asian Languages & Civilizations, English Language & Literature, Linguistics, Music (composition), and Philosophy.
• Several humanities and language departments—such as Classics, Comparative Literature, Germanic Studies, Middle Eastern Studies, Romance Languages and Literatures, Slavic Languages and Literatures, South Asian Languages and Civilizations, plus certain music programs—are pausing Ph.D. admissions for the 2026–27 academic year.
• The Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy and Practice and the Harris School of Public Policy have announced one-year suspensions of doctoral and graduate program admissions to allow mission and structural reviews.
• The administration describes the measures as temporary pauses for comprehensive program reviews and assures that currently enrolled students will not be affected.
• Faculty leaders have criticized the unilateral decision—made outside working-group recommendations—and warned that cuts could erode language instruction, area studies and the future pipeline of humanities scholars.