Students anxious for freshman arrival

Freshmen students will not be the only new group welcomed to campus this fall. As the class of 2008 prepares for arrival at the university, returning students are anxiously anticipating the arrival of freshmen - first-year faculty, that is.

Fall 2004 is unique for the recent history of UConn in that for the first time in a long while students will have the chance to welcome freshmen faculty to the university. Over the last several years, the university has suffered from a shortage of professors.

Previously, the administration tolerated large increases in student enrollment at the expense of operating services. As enrollment increased, the student to faculty ratio rose substantially. The incoming freshman class is not familiar with skyrocketing class sizes, students being locked out of classes or students failing to graduate on time because of faculty shortages.

Students attending UConn for the last three or four years can attest that class sizes have dramatically increased, while at the same time getting into classes has become exponentially harder. Unfortunately, the university administration tolerated these setbacks to the quality of education services.

However, such a pattern appears to be changing for the better. This summer it will be hiring 100 faculty members to replace those professors who took advantage of early retirement last year. Such a replacement has come along with unexpected increases to tuition costs. While the dramatic increases to tuition may be a burden, it is heartening to see the university using the money to replace faculty, rather than other less necessary services.

Nevertheless, the increase of 100 faculty members is not all the university will be receiving. According to a recent article in the Hartford Courant, entitled "UConn to Add 150 to Faculty," the university will be hiring 150 faculty members over the next five years, in addition to faculty being replaced this summer.

Upon arrival to the university, freshmen students will learn how desperately more faculty are needed. All students will welcome the newly released hiring plan as something long overdue.

However, the Hartford Courant went on to report in its article, "Administrators said they are not sure where the money will come from [to hire the new faculty] and are looking at several potential sources, including tuition, state funding and savings derived from consolidating services within the university."

While it is heartening to see the university hiring more faculty, the administration must be aware that a large portion of the student body cannot afford further increases in tuition above and beyond those increases already approved by the Board of Trustees. With dramatic increases in tuition slated for the coming years, one would hope the university would look to sources other than tuition increases.

Consolidating services can be a viable option, but students should be wary of the consolidation of academic services. Just this year, the abolishment of the UConn geology department was undertaken and the faculty from the geology department was consolidated into additional majors. When the university says it wishes to save money by consolidating services, let us hope it means the consolidation of administrative offices and not student services.

Perhaps the most often under-looked source of money is the operating budget provided by the state of Connecticut. President Philip Austin has been a leader at lobbying the legislature for building projects such as 21st Century UConn. With any luck, he will lobby the legislature for increases to the operating budget as intensely and as passionately as he has lobbied for UConn's capital budget.

Furthermore, the aggressive hiring plan specifically singles out the schools of education and business to receive extensive amounts of professors. Moreover, 41 of the 150 hiring slots have been predetermined to go to the sciences (engineering and biological). With many of the slots already predetermined, some of the university's largest majors are being left behind.

The political science department is one of the university's most popular academic concentrations and junior level class sizes have skyrocketed to over 50 students, with some classes pushing 75 and 100 students. Clearly this department is one in need of additional faculty.

However, with the majority of faculty being allocated to the hard sciences and some of the smaller schools, perhaps the faculty is not being wisely distributed. An increase of 150 professors will improve UConn's student to faculty ratio. However, it runs the risk of only improving a number that looks good on paper and in the rankings, rather than improving the problem at hand.

Students will only be left to question the equity in this hiring increase. As new faculty members are added to departments with already substantially low student to faculty ratios, perhaps increases would be better spent in some of the larger and more popular academic concentrations. Simply put, this is an equity issue.

Adding more professors to areas such as engineering can be appealing because the hard sciences bring large research grants to the university. However, UConn must be careful not to leave students in the social sciences behind the curve because of the less profitable nature of research grants.

Lastly, UConn must not see the broad acceptance of more faculty as student consent to increase the student enrollment at the university. The addition of 150 faculty members is only advantageous if the university allows for a freeze on student admissions.

One hundred and fifty faculty members are not nearly enough of an increase to allow for expansion of the student body. The university is already over-enrolling in terms of both housing and class sizes. With some departments to receive a substantially smaller relative number of new faculty members, student enrollment must be frozen.

For those students ready to graduate from UConn this spring, the newly announced hiring plan is welcomed and applauded. Students completing their degree at the university also realize the plan is too little, too late. But for those freshmen students entering this fall, the plan is a much-needed relief and with any luck, not just an opportunity for the administration to raise tuition and enrollment.

Source: The Hartford Courant, "UConn to Add 150 to Faculty," July 23, 2004