• The proposal was to sunset the Bachelor of Arts Forensics and Investigative Science (FIS), the minor in Forensic and Investigative Science and the post-bacc Forensic Science (FS) certificate.
• Declared Forensic and Investigative Science (BA) students will be able to finish their degrees, as the department has proposed a teach-out plan with pending additional resources.
• The Bachelor of Science Forensic Science programs, both the biology and chemistry routes, are not being sunset.
• The Faculty Council voted unanimously to continue forward with the phasing out of the program.

The voting to phase out the Bachelor of Arts (BA) Forensics and Investigative Forensic Science (FIS) program, as well as its associated minor and post-bac program, took place in the final Faculty Council Meeting of the 2024-25 academic year. Outside of 12 abstentions, the remainder of the council unanimously voted in favor of the sunsetting proposal.
The Criminal Justice and Forensic Science (CJFS) Faculty submitted a proposal to the Academic Affairs Committee (AAC) outlining their reasoning behind the sunsetting of the BA in FIS, and the corresponding minor and certificate, stating that despite numerous attempts to requesting assistance from the university, they are no longer able to sustain the programs.
In their proposal, the CJFS faculty wrote “The department sounded the alarm bells in 2023 to administration, and in October of 2024, Jamie Spaulding and Shelly Schaefer created a formal proposal that detailed the current state of the FS program and predicted growth and sent the proposal (see here) and met with University leadership (Interim Provost Andy Rundquist, Marcela Kostihovà, Sue Kerry and Mary Jensen) outlining the sustainability issues of the program.”
Despite these meetings, there were no proposed solutions to obtain sustainability. The department had not heard any further information regarding their previous proposal.
“We want it to be clear to AAC and faculty that we do not see a way to maintain the BA in Forensic and Investigative Science major (58 [students]) or minor (28) or the post-bac program (3). It would be unethical to maintain programs that have zero faculty to support them,” CJFS wrote.
This comes after Dr. Jamie Spaulding announced that he would not be returning to Hamline University after this spring. Spaulding, Assistant Professor of Forensic Science, has been a crucial component to the prominence of the program, known best for instructing the forensic crime scene exercises. In his absence, the resources, or lack thereof, the program currently exhibits have led to the difficult decision of sunsetting one of Hamline’s premier undergraduate programs.
“The only way to resource something like this is if we cut it from someplace else. We had, during the last program review, cut a lot. We’ve also decreased the number of faculty, but in order to add new faculty to forensic science, with the fact that yes, that program was successful, but other programs have shrunk — we do not have the money. As the last faculty meeting showed us, people are incredibly reluctant to cut programs that are not bringing in enough revenue, so we could invest in this program that would help us grow,” Dean of the College of Liberal Arts Marcela Kostihovà said in the meeting.
This marks the second time the Hamline faculty has voted to sunset a program this semester, after the administration’s proposal to sunset the Creative Writing Master of Fine Arts (MFA) was met with widespread upset and a unanimous rejection from the faculty. Associate Professor of Creative Writing Angela Pelster-Wiebe, who, amongst other faculty and staff, was a key voice advocating for the continuation of the MFA, voiced her empathy for the decision that the CJFS department had come to.
“I just want to say that I really appreciate what seems like a lot of thought and care about the ethics of what it means to not run a program just because it is succeeding, we have students and we have committed to doing something well. How heartbreaking to succeed so much and then to have it not be supported. So that must have taken so much courage and thought and work, agonizing emotional labor as well as all the time you spent on it,” Pelster-Wiebe said during the meeting
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