As universities cut programs, UCLA introduces new majors, minors

UCLA students interested in specific career fields have long pursued their interests through campus clubs, internships and other extracurricular avenues.

But this fall, UCLA gave many of these students their first opportunity to pursue these interests in a formal classroom setting, with the launch of the sports leadership and management and real estate minors.

The addition of these pre-professional minors is just one of the changes UCLA made to its major, minor and department offerings this fall. The university also announced a new digital humanities department, including a new major under the department, and a health humanities minor.

The recent additions reflect a combination of faculty interest and UCLA’s efforts to provide coursework connected to emerging academic fields and career paths, said Peter Lunenfeld, a professor of design media arts and faculty member in the newly created digital humanities department.

Creating a new program, though, requires many steps that can take years to complete.

Tim Groeling, the UCLA Academic Senate chair and communications professor, said in an emailed statement that new programs begin with a proposal that must go through multiple stages of review. He added that departments, faculty members or faculty executive committees – which oversee academic programs and review curricular requirements within their respective schools – can make such proposals.

Groeling is a former member of the ASUCLA Communications Board, which oversees UCLA Student Media, including the Daily Bruin.

After initial approval by department faculty and the relevant faculty executive committee, proposals for new degree programs and minors go to the Academic Senate, Groeling said in the statement.

The senate’s graduate or undergraduate council reviews proposals, often in consultation with other senate committees, Groeling said in the statement. Some proposals – including those involving the transfer, consolidation, discontinuance and suspension of academic programs and units – also require approval from the legislative assembly, a body of the Academic Senate, Groeling added.

Undergraduate degree programs require the endorsement of the executive vice chancellor and provost, while new graduate programs also require approval from the UC Academic Senate and the UC Office of the President, Groeling added.

Review and approval of proposals can take several years, Groeling said. The new health humanities minor was being developed for “quite some time” before its official establishment in the spring, said Brianna Boling, its student services advisor.

Some new programs have arisen from even longer-standing discussions among members of the university community.

Conversations about formally establishing a digital humanities program, which explores the role digital tools have in human culture, began more than 20 years ago, Lunenfeld said.

“What people started to realize was that it was not just about asking the same questions and getting quicker answers. It was about asking entirely new questions and opening up new fields,” Lunenfeld said. “A group of faculty at UCLA was very interested in this.”

The digital humanities minor, which UCLA introduced in 2011, has attracted students across disciplines, including economics and computer science, Lunenfeld said. The university’s freestanding department of digital humanities is the nation’s first, according to the UC’s website.

The digital humanities minor has since become the largest in the UCLA College of Letters and Science and the second-largest at UCLA overall, said Wendy Perla Kurtz, a continuing lecturer in the digital humanities department.

Kurtz said she believes students are increasingly interested in academic programs that combine disciplines, particularly as emerging technologies push the boundaries of traditional fields of study. Understanding technologies like AI requires not only technical knowledge, but also an understanding of their cultural, political and ethical implications, she added.

“Students increasingly recognize that many of the questions they care about require more than one disciplinary perspective,” Kurtz said.

Student efforts and interests have also played a role in the creation of new programs.

Rohaan Trivedi, a third-year political science student who was admitted to the real estate minor, said real estate clubs on campus, such as the Bruin Real Estate Association, had been pushing for the minor because UCLA previously offered only a few courses for students looking to enter the industry.

Trivedi got his real estate license during his first year at UCLA to supplement the lack of a formal program, he said.

“Finally having something that’s tangible, having professors that have not only taught but been in industries, and then teaching the industry stuff that we can use on the job as well,” Trivedi said. “That’s what we want more of.”

Boling said student organizations, such as Beyond the Chart and (Re) Defining Health, had previously collaborated with key faculty in the health humanities minor to discuss topics that will now be covered in the program.

“It came about from student need. There’s so many pre-health students on campus,” Boling said. “UCLA has pre-health guidance and worksheets and all these things, but there was never as intentional of a way for undergraduate students to interact with this space.”

Boling added that the interdisciplinary nature of the minor can help broaden students’ perspectives and prepare them to pursue medical careers.

“It’s a different exploration of what health is,” Boling said. “It’s not the clinical facts. It’s not the science. It’s not the math. It’s thinking about the patients, the humanity of it all, their story.”

The program combines previously existing courses with new ones created ahead of the announcement of the new minor, Boling said.

The addition of new majors reflects UCLA’s resolve as an institution amid a difficult time for higher education, Lunenfeld said.

Colleges and universities across the country are increasingly eliminating or consolidating academic offerings, primarily in the humanities, citing financial pressures, declining enrollment and changing student interests.

These closures have struck both private and public schools across the country. Syracuse University announced in April that it planned to discontinue or pause 93 academic programs – including degrees in classics, fine arts and foreign languages – while the University of Arizona said it would lay off 28 employees in finance, administration and communications beginning in August.

UCLA is far from immune from higher education’s budget problem. The university has slashed funding for its political science and math departments and reported a $58 million deficit.

Federal higher education policy is also changing. The U.S. Department of Education announced new regulations in June requiring college programs to demonstrate that their graduates earn more than those with lower levels of education. Under the regulations, which took effect July 2026, programs that fail to meet the earnings benchmarks in two out of three consecutive years will lose eligibility for federal student loans.

Lunenfeld said he is proud to work for an institution that is adding new programs rather than eliminating existing ones in response to higher education’s changing landscape.

“All over the country, different institutions are shutting vulnerable majors down,” Lunenfeld said. “It’s a terrible assault on knowledge, and yet here we are, UCLA, responding to the moment, responding to student interest, faculty research and a sense of where the future lies.”

As universities cut programs, UCLA introduces new majors, minors

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