With a new hiring freeze in effect for the College, some departments are struggling to understand what this will mean for individual programs.
The College of Arts and Sciences suspended the hiring of new faculty members for the 2002-03 school year Thursday because of a shortage of state revenue and uncertainty about the state's budget.
The state is required by law to maintain a balanced monthly budget. But, state revenue, undercut by a slowing economy, is behind for the first quarter of the year. Meanwhile, the General Assembly failed to pass a yearly budget at the last legislative session, creating uncertainty about funding for higher education. Anticipating a possible mid-year budget cut, College Dean Edward Ayers decided to enact the hiring freeze to save money.
"We must not make any new, long-term financial commitments until the uncertainty about the budget can be resolved," Ayers said in a memo to the College department chairs last week.
The freeze puts a halt to 25 employment searches that departments within the College were conducting, Ayers said.
"Every department will be hit hard," he said. However, "I'm hoping the departments will be able to minimize the affects on students."
Some foreign language departments will avoid the hiring freeze thanks to a "substantial" amount of University funding given by President John T. Casteen III to the College to hire language faculty, Ayers said. "That's the place where we see the biggest press for courses," he added.
According to a memo from the Dean's Office, departments can apply for exemptions to the hiring freeze in two cases. The College will consider granting an exemption in order to fill a faculty position that is largely funded by private sources or that is "essential to meet instructional responsibilities" and can be filled while still reducing the state faculty budget.
The psychology, history, and economics departments were conducting the largest numbers of employment searches, he added.
The economics department was planning on replacing six departing professors, representing 20 percent of the department's faculty, before the hiring freeze, said Chairman David Mills. Because of the large number of vacancies and the already large faculty-to-student ratio in economics classes, Mills said he believed the department deserved some exemptions to the hiring halt.
The media studies program may also be hit hard by the freeze, director Johanna Drucker said. The program, which is only in its second year of existence, has just two full-time professors and was trying to add a third. "Our program is so tiny that [the freeze] will have a larger effect than on larger departments," Drucker said. "It's painful for everybody."
The freeze comes as professors in various departments within the College complain already about inadequate faculty numbers.
"All of the departments are understaffed," Ayers said. Most departments have high demand for classes and could expand their programs if they had more faculty, he said.
"That's the bottom line, that there should be more funding for public education" in the state budget, said Drucker.
"Not a single faculty member has complained to me" about the freeze, said Ayers. "Everyone understands that this is part of a situation that's out of our control and larger than the University"
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