Normalize Triggering of Faculty Line Allocation

Proposal

The allocation of new faculty lines should be at least partially normalized and automatic so that increased enrollments trigger new positions.

We should have benchmark limits that, when met will require an automatic hire of a new faculty member. For example: If the student to teacher ratio in any academic department/program (by course enrollment, not # of majors) rises above a certain value for three consecutive years, a new tenure track faculty member will be hired in that department/program.

Data

To assess this proposal we might look at recent total course enrollments by department/program  in comparison with total faculty FTE and current percentage of adjunct faculty.  How far are we already from FTE going where enrollment is (or vice versa)?

Rationale

Submitting requests for new tenure track positions puts departments in competition with one another and fosters a relationship of antagonism. Eliminating competition from this process by making it automatic can improve inter-departmental relationships.

Allocations that do not track with enrollments end up creating imbalanced workloads where departments with more enrollment but no new faculty have higher student-teacher ratio.

At some level, allocations that do not track enrollments bake in a disciplinary demography that does not match student interests.

A similar tying of new positions to total enrollment would also regularize the creation of new FTE AND would preserve the incentive of all faculty to make their programs more and more attractive without having to worry that they would be penalized, so to speak, for success.

Caveats and Considerations

• We may also need to consider the amount of adjunct teaching that is healthy in different departments.   For example, English has a lot of adjunct faculty to teach ENG 1 (which may be appropriate). The sciences also have a lot of adjunct faculty to teach labs (which is may be appropriate).
• Any student demand / instructor count calculations have to allow for the fact that there will be a range of ratios across a healthy institution.