Page 4 University Daily Kansan, August 21, 1980
Faculty size may decline with falling enrollments
By RANDY MARTIN and LESLIE SPANGLER Staff Reporters
By 1935, enrollment at the University of Kansas is expected to be about 20,500, a drop from nearly 4,000 from this fall's anticipated enrollment, according to projections made by the Institutional Research and Planning Office.
To maintain the present faculty-to-student ratio of 17-40 to, the number of faculty members would have to be decreased by approximately 190.
June Michal, assistant to the vice chancellor for academic affairs, said that KU is already reducing the number of faculty members.
SEVERAL POSITIONS ARE FILLED each year on a temporary basis. Those positions could be left vacant if a funding shortage occurred. Some teaching assistant and instructor positions could also be eliminated, she said.
Gerhard Zuther, chairman of the English department, said the reduction had affected his department already.
"We had one retirement this year. The position was taken back by the
"A great number of our classes are taught by graduate assistants," he said. "Those could be cut out, leaving the full-time staff alone."
Michal said she was confident that the size of the faculty could be reduced through the resignation and retirement of faculty members and that the Universal Service could eliminate those positions. This would avoid eliminating tenured positions in the future.
JOEL GOLD, professor of English and a member of the University Committee on Promotions and Tenure, said that once tenure was obtained, there were only three ways a faculty member could be fired: moral turpitude, discontinuation of a program, or financial exigency.
Financial exigency, the existence of an extreme financial crisis, permits the release of tenured faculty members in order to keep the University operating.
Gold said the conditions of exigency
were defined in a document submitted by the KU chapter of the American Association of University Professors in 1976. Under the exigency policy, only the chancellor has the authority to declare financial exigency. The policy must be declared for the entire university, not just a department or school.
FINANCIAL EXIGENCY MAY never occur, he said, but in the next few years professors may be teaching more and having fewer teaching assistants.
"We made it very difficult to lop off jobs." Gold said.
The exigency policy has not been challenged by any groups, Gold said, and it would probably be approved by the Board of Regrets if the Kansas Legislature decided to cut funds that could affect faculty size.
The policy is to be reviewed in 1981. Acting Chancellor Dell Shankel said he would not make the decision controversies arose, he would leave the decision to the permanent chancellor.
NO OTHER KANSAS universities have such a clearly defined exigency policy, and because preparations are already underway to handle decreasing KU, other state institutions would face cutbacks before KU, Gold said.
Some faculty members said that decreased enrollment could improve their faculty workload.
Charles Himmelberg, chairman of the math department, said that, even though enrollment in the math department had increased 20 percent since 1975, the size of the faculty has remained the same.
The bath department has a large number of temporary positions that could be dropped if financial problems arise. The bathroom department now fills any vacant position.
Dale Scannell, dean of the School of Education, said his school has been stringent about granting tenure for several years.
"We don't expect a drastic decline in enrollment because most of our enrollment is non-traditional, teachers continuing their education," he said.
"Our faculty load is pretty heavy now. If enrollment drops, it will make it more difficult to date."
SHANKEL SAID he thought that
declining enrollments could offer an opportunity to improve the quality of education.
Lowering the faculty-to-student ratio could mean that students would have the opportunity to be exposed to more experts in their fields, said Shankel. Keeping the faculty size up during the declining enrollment will require convincing the Legislature of the need to do so, he said.
One danger of using present methods for decreasing the faculty size, Shankel said, is that if new positions are not filled from outside the University, people with new ideas might be locked out of University positions.
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