What do the words “strategic planning” mean to Northeastern students? They might bring to mind empty claims a politician states when he lacks true evidence to support a decision in the making. This is, however, the main argument Dean and Interim Provost Zoloth repeatedly made at both the recent meeting he held with the Athletic Training Education Program students and Wednesday at Faculty Senate.

Apparently, Zoloth has been working for more than a year on a plan to suspend admissions to one of the top-ranked athletic training programs in the country. For “strategic reasons,” he would like to suspend admissions to a program that annually graduates some of the largest classes in the nation in its field, with the highest average passing rate on our certification exam at 96 percent, compared to a national average of 37 percent. Zoloth wishes to remove this program from the Bouv’eacute; College of Health Science, its home for the past 34 years.

What is the underlying message in removing a program whose students travel to clinical rotations at more than 19 sites in the Boston area and even more on co-op rotations? What message is being sent across the university itself when an extremely successful program, providing community service and spreading the great reputation of Northeastern, is suspended for strategy? The only strategy I see here is one that is resonating throughout undergraduate programs within the university: a move from an institution focusing on practical undergraduate programs to one that values elitist research and academics more.

What these administrators fail to realize is without the underpinnings of strong undergraduate programs in “practical studies,” there is no support for elite research graduate programs. When a university removes the growing undergraduate drawing pool, it is left with nothing but a fa