I believe it is more than relates to any comeback. You have attempted to counter discussions simply trying to show that analog is just as viable a photographic medium as digital and reasons for its teaching, use, and continued survival.
Readjusting downward is not exactly a stasis. You have the audacity to say these types of things when you yourself are contributing to them by not teaching analog at your school by choice. Fortunately you can't control the internet and as I indicated earlier that will continue to be a force in keeping analog strong.
I hear you; perhaps it is a matter of stopping the freefall and holding at a new, admittedly lower, level.
As to classes, clearly digital is a more useful tool for getting started an it enjoys a greater use in commercial and public work. Further, with budget cuts we needed to support the classes that drew students and created students who would move forward in the program. Film did neither. From 2011 to present the number of entry-level classes were reduced from 5 to 1; not enough students were enrolling in them and the completion rate was 30-35%. Film was hard to justify.
While I was chair 2015-2017 I did press for more digital entry-level classes and was accused by my older instructors of trying to kill film. They did not seem to see that they could not develop enrollment and were unable to keep students in class, both out of my hands.There, just as here, I was a convenient target for frustrations. As an inveterate messenger I am accustomed to that.
We have a fine darkroom and all of the supporting loading, chemical, storage, drying and film processing rooms. At that time we were the only school in a 20-mile radius to offer darkroom and had the talent, supported by a studio. I've seen too many old darkrooms become dusty storage and I could not simply let it all go. I instigated a special Certificate of 3 Film-oriented classes. Under a new chair these were placed in the curriculum. We now have Entry and Intermediate levels of film along with a Special process class (cyanotype & etc.) Special processes drew no students and was cancelled, Intermediate drew 7 and finished 4, Intro drew 15 and finished 8. Special and Intermediate are not offered in the Fall with only Intro surviving.
Today I see that our school 20 miles north is did not conduct any classes in analogue processes and the school to the east, who's Photo classes are a small part (5 of 38) of the Art Department Department offers only 2 film classes with the Intro digital prerequisite. So to you here and my colleagues who have blamed me...there you have it. I cannot control the world.
At the same time, I will not go on some mission to keep film alive at the cost of the whole program surviving. Photo as a career is under great scrutiny and if we don't produce numbers we can disappear; photo departments are disappearing at an alarming rate. We have lost 1 of our 6 part-time instructors and have no full-time instructors. Non-productive classes are being cut from above administratively.
The politics in the last 2 years have been awful for us. To administrators, I am a blessing and curse and I am chair again. I do not want the chair but I am the best person to do this job; it may not be pretty. I get things done and enrollment in the program increases under my work. We are so far down now, though, that I am not certain I can pull this one out of the hat. It won't be for lack of trying, not to keep film alive, but to keep a Photo program alive.