The University Council officially terminated eight graduate majors Thursday, but the head of the Curriculum Committee said few students will feel the impact.

“Hardly anybody is being affected,” David Shipley, chair of the Curriculum Committee, said in a phone interview Tuesday. “These are all very small, and where students are currently in [the majors], they are going to be taken care of.”

Two degree programs – the Master of Arts in Latin and Master of Arts in Greek – were terminated in the Classics Department as part of an overall curriculum reform initiative, said Richard LaFleur, Franklin College of Arts and Sciences professor of classics and Associate Department Head.

“Until we decided to reform the curriculum we had three graduate degree options – all [Master of Arts] degrees,” LaFleur said in a phone interview Tuesday. “We decided to consolidate all three of those into a single degree called M.A. Classical Languages.”

LaFleur said the department now offers “areas of emphasis” within the graduate degree program, so students can get one degree that has the option of an area of emphasis in Latin, Greek or a combination of the two.

“We consolidated the three degrees into one, but we’re still offering the same courses . and there’s really no loss at all to our students,” he said. “It’s a greater efficiency.”

LaFleur said part of the overall revision to the graduate program includes a new master’s degree in Latin specifically for high school teachers.

“So we actually have more diverse offerings now,” he said. “That degree option really represented a culmination of a commitment and a tradition to outreach and to collaboration with K-12 education.”

Other graduate programs that have been “terminated” are being reclassified into different departments.

The Physical Education and Sports Studies graduate program is now under the Kinesiology Department – a move consistent with the name change of the department last year, Shipley said.

The College of Veterinary Medicine instituted a college-wide program to provide a degree of Master in Science in Veterinary and Biomedical Sciences to replace the two majors being terminated within the college – Master of Science in Anatomy and Master of Science in Physiology and Pharmacology.

“I think it’s really no impact because there’s another degree that they offer now that would cover this,” Shipley said.

The termination of the Doctor of Education in Reading Education and the Doctor of Philosophy in Language Education also will have no impact on students, he said.

Mark Faust, head of the Department of Language and Literacy Education in the College of Education, said there was not much demand for the Doctor of Education in Reading Education degree.

“It just didn’t seem to fit into the overall picture,” he said in a phone interview Thursday. “Rather than retool the [Doctor of Education in Reading Education], we decided to get rid of it.”

The degree has been replaced with a Ph.D. program in language and literacy education, said Faust.

“There seems to be a push on campus to consolidate and create higher enrollment programs, so that also was part of the reason we decided to go ahead and get rid of the [major].”

Another new program in language and literature education – approved last year – has replaced the Doctor of Philosophy in Language Education, Shipley said.

The termination of the Master of Arts in Teaching for English will not affect students who want teacher certification.

“It was never intended for teacher certification, which you can get in the College of Education,” Shipley said. “For a teacher who needs certification, this is still possible at UGA through the [College of Education].”

Major terminations come to the Curriculum Committee as requests from the department or college, Shipley said. Proposals must address whether a substantial number of students would be impacted by the termination.

“The few students that are impacted will be taken care of and be able to get the [original] degree or [will be] shifting to the new degree,” he said.

“It’s not like anybody’s going to be left out. Everybody’s going to be taken care of.”