By Gretchen Millich
East Lansing, MI – Supporters of the music therapy program at Michigan State University are asking the Board of Trustees to investigate the proposed disbandment of the program.
MSU stopped admissions to the program this summer. Then, last week, the Academic Council voted to eliminate the program altogether.
Virginia Anderson is a music therapy graduate student. She wants to work with the administration to come up with alternatives to save the program. "We're asking to slow this process down," Anderson says. "In our opinion, it's been pushed through the governance system at an alarming rate. The moratorium was not finalized until summer and here we are just two and a half months later, disbanding the program."
Board chairman Joel Ferguson says students are "wasting their time". He says cutting the music therapy program is part of an overall four percent reduction in the budget for the College of Music.