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The faculty reduction plan summarized below
has been agreed on by the Committee on Academic Priorities (CAP), the President and
the Provost. It was a difficult process that we all took on with heavy hearts. None
of us wanted to reduce the size of the faculty, but given the need to reduce the
overall College budget a reduction of the size of the faculty was necessary.
CAP considered detailed longitudinal data on staffing,
enrollments, majors, and trends in enrollment.
The faculty members on CAP (Don Baumer, GOV; Bob Buchele,
ECO; Nick Horton, MTH; Bill Oram, ENG; Katwiwa Mule CLT; and Cornelia Pearsall, ENG)
interviewed 31 of the 41 departments and programs that have staffing and reported
back to the rest of the committee (John Davis, Associate Provost; Danielle Ramdath,
Associate Dean of the Faculty; Maureen Mahoney, Dean of the College; and Marilyn
Schuster, Provost & Dean of the Faculty).
In all of the deliberations the committee considered
the curricular priorities of the Smith Design, the recommendations of the Art & Science
Research Group report and the traditional strengths of the curriculum.
The budget plan that was developed by the major
planning committees (that include representatives from the faculty, staff, students
and administration) in the spring of 2009 called for a reduction to the budget supporting
the Faculty Salary Pool of $3.7 million. This figure included an estimated
reduction of about 25 positions in the Core+ faculty (Core+ includes tenured and
tenure track positions, senior lecturers, visiting artists and scholars and some
long term non-tenure track lecturers), to achieve a student:faculty ratio of 10:1;
the $3.7 million goal included some reduction to non-core costs.
At the October 2009 Board of Trustees meeting, the goal
for the reduction was itself reduced to $2.6 million instead of $3.7 million which
translated to about 17 instead of 25 positions. In the end we were able to make economies
that cut that number down to 13.5. Of that 13.5, 4 have already been taken, which
leaves 9.5 cuts to make by 2015-16.
- Protect Core+ positions as much as possible. Core+ positions (tenure track,
senior lecturers, visiting artists, long-term lecturers) assure continuity and
stability in departments.
- Identify FTE not persons
- In most cases, take the cut at the first vacancy.
- Maintain policy that a vacancy created by a tenure denial would remain
with the department and would not be cut.
- Take some bold steps that will lead to the reorganization of some areas of
the curriculum rather than spread out the cuts evenly.
- Share resources, both staffing and curricular. Encourage cooperation between
departments and between departments and programs whether through joint appointments,
shared curriculum, or fixed-term contractual agreements for individual faculty
members to commit a course or two to a program outside their home department for
a specific period of time.
- Encourage departments and programs to make use of Five College resources more
fully and in new ways.
- When a future FTE not identified in the reduction plan becomes vacant because
of a retirement or resignation, the position is considered a faculty vacancy not
a department or program vacancy.
- Future requests for new positions that will serve more than one department or
program will be given more weight than positions that serve one department
or program exclusively.
Savings in non-core expenses
About half of the reduction in the Faculty Salary Pool has been achieved through
savings in non-core positions. All academic departments and programs will
share the burden of these cuts, as we will generally be less able to provide replacement
courses for leaves and administrative service.
We have reduced the number of teaching fellowships for
graduate students and teaching assistantships in language departments. The
President and the Provost were able to re-deploy some endowed funds to protect one
position that would otherwise have been eliminated.
Reductions in Core+ positions
The 13.5 FTE cuts to be made by 2015-16 are indicated below:
Department
or Program |
Reductions
to be made by 2015-16 |
|
|
Afro-American Studies |
0.5 |
|
|
American Studies |
0.5 |
|
|
Art |
0.5 |
|
|
Biological Sciences |
0.5 |
|
|
Economics |
0.5 |
|
|
Education & Child
Study |
0.5 |
|
|
Picker Engineering
Program |
0.5 |
|
|
English Language & Literature |
1.5 |
|
|
French Studies |
1.0 |
|
|
Government |
1.0 |
|
|
Music |
2.5 |
|
|
Psychology |
0.5 |
|
|
Religion |
1.0 |
|
|
Russian Language & Literature |
1.0 |
|
|
Spanish & Portuguese |
0.5 |
|
|
Study of Women & Gender |
0.5 |
|
|
Theatre |
0.5 |
|
|
Total Core
+ positions |
13.5 |
Departments and programs not on this list bear a special
responsibility to share resources with those departments and programs with which
they have affinities. |
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