Last week, Drew University informed faculty members and graduate students in English and the department of modern history and literature that it planned a review of the two departments’ Ph.D. programs. That announcement alone would not have been news: Such reviews are commonplace and, at a time of heightened scrutiny of doctoral education and the quality of higher education generally, would seem like sound policy.

But Drew’s approach raised eyebrows and, in some circles, hackles, for several reasons. First, professors in the departments found out about the review only after the fact, in a meeting Wednesday with the provost and interim dean of graduate studies; administrators had neither sought advice nor allowed for discussion ahead of time, which several faculty members said was out of character on a campus in which consultation is, as one put it, a “hyper-norm.”

Second, administrators announced that while the review unfolds, Drew would suspend admissions to the two Ph.D. programs. When that news hit the campus in an e-mail message to graduate students in the programs Thursday, it created a sense of deep concern, raising doubts about the future viability of the doctoral programs.