General (Ret.) Mark A. Welsh III
President
September 9, 2025
Members of the Aggie Family,
I am reaching out today to follow up on a statement I distributed through social media yesterday regarding an ongoing issue with one of our 16,000 course sections. I directed the Provost to remove the College of Arts and Sciences Dean and English Department Head from their administrative positions.
This afternoon, following full consideration of the facts related to this situation, I directed the Provost to terminate the professor involved, effective immediately. Please understand that these decisions were mine alone and were not made lightly. While I cannot provide all the details at this time, I will share the following facts.
This summer, a children’s literature course contained content that did not align with any reasonable expectation of standard curriculum for the course. After this issue was raised, college and department leadership worked with students to offer alternative opportunities for students to complete the course, and made changes to ensure this course content does not continue in future semesters. At that time, I made it clear to our academic leadership that course content must match catalog descriptions for each and every one of our course sections.
However, I learned late yesterday that despite that directive, the college continued to teach content that was inconsistent with the published course description for another course this fall. As a result, I took the above administrative actions, and deans and department heads will conduct an audit of course offerings to ensure they align with the course descriptions.
Our students use the published information in the course catalog to make important decisions about the courses they take in pursuit of their degrees. If we allow different course content to be taught from what is advertised, we break trust with our students. When it comes to our academic offerings, we must keep faith with our students and with the state of Texas.
This isn’t about academic freedom; it’s about academic responsibility. Our degree programs and courses go through extensive approval processes, and we must ensure that what we ultimately deliver to students is consistent with what was approved.
Texas A&M is a great university — the best in the world. This is a place that honors academic freedom and academic responsibility. It’s also a place that unequivocally abides by state and federal law. Together, we will remain committed to our Aggie Core Values and providing our students with the education and experience they deserve.
r/mark
General (Ret.) Mark A. Welsh III, President
Source link
