The William Oxley Thompson statue in front of Thompson Library on Oct. 8, 2025. Credit: Daniel Bush | Campus Photo Editor
Ohio State is cutting eight majors and has proposed combining 20 others to comply with Senate Bill 1.
Integrated mathematics and English, medieval and renaissance studies, music theory and musicology are among the deactivated programs, according to a Board of Trustees meeting document.
Also called SB 1 when it was passed by the Ohio legislature, the law banned diversity, equity and inclusion measures, as well as faculty striking, per prior to Lantern reporting. The legislation also requires programs that have less than five graduates to be deactivated.
Chris Booker, university spokesperson, said that the Low Enrollment Courses and Duplicate Programs report predated SB 1, and is required every three years by the institution.
“While this year’s report included mention of program deactivations and waivers following SB 1, these actions are being managed directly with (the Ohio Department of Higher Education) through the processes that have been established for all public universities in Ohio,” Booker said in an email.
The deactivated majors were announced at a Nov. 20 Board of Trustees meeting. All students in the programs that are being eliminated will be able to finish their degree, Booker said.
In summer 2025, the university determined there were eight programs to cut, according to a document from the meeting. The eight majors are in the College of Arts and Sciences and the College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences.
Majors in the College of Arts and Sciences include the integrated major in mathematics and English, medieval and renaissance studies, music theory and musicology.
In addition to the College of Arts and Sciences majors, programs in the College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences include biochemical science and landscape horticulture. Both the associate of science in sustainable agriculture and associate of applied science in sustainable agriculture are also being eliminated.
Ohio State has requested waivers to merge some programs into related disciplines, with the majority of those affected being language studies.
French, French and francophone studies, Italian, Italian studies and romance studies will merge into a new French and Italian major.
Ancient history and classics and modern Greek are going to be combined into the existing classics major, and religious studies and world literature will merge into the existing comparative studies major.
Spanish and Portuguese will move into one new major: Spanish and Portuguese studies. Arabic, Hebrew, Jewish studies and Islamic studies are also to be moved into a new Near Eastern and South Asian studies major, Booker said.
The university also requested waivers for 13 programs to continue for up to two years, including the bachelor of music in music composition, bachelor of science in vision science and both the bachelor of arts and bachelor of sciences personalized study program.
