Time for a rebrand? Examining the efforts of college departments in the California State University system to reimagine,reinvent,reposition,and rebrand themselves in response to a changing higher education landscape

Abstract

Higher education in the United States is facing an enrolment crisis. With smaller sizes of college-age birth cohorts on the horizon, declining current and projected enrollments have created an existential crisis for many college departments. And yet, little is known about what college departments are doing to respond to this enrolment challenge. This article examines how Political Science and Global Studies departments have responded to enrolment pressures over the past 5 years by implementing outward-facing programmatic changes – such as renaming departments and revising majors, minors, and concentrations – and evaluates the motivations behind these changes through an original survey of department chairs in the California State University system. Our findings reveal that while institutional inertia remains strong, a majority of departments surveyed have implemented at least one outward-facing change over the past 5 years and the most common motivator of change cited was to increase student enrolment.