ATLANTA - A dean at Emory University has decided to discontinue the school's journalism program. Dean Robin Forman announced his decision Friday in a letter to the College of Arts and Sciences community. The division of Educational Studies and departments of physical education and visual arts are also being shut down.

Currently enrolled students will be able to complete their courses.

Forman writes that the arts college has too many departments and programs and is "stretched to the limit."

But the director of the Emory Journalism Program disagrees in a letter to students. Hank Klibanoff, a former managing editor of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, says the 16-year-old program has grown steadily in recent years. He says faculty members are saddened and astonished by the move.

The program has nearly 160 students. More than one-third of them are co-majors and minors.