Although students are not yet feeling the effect, College of Arts and Sciences administrators are taking steps toward implementing the proposed changes in the college.
Last semester, the college announced plans to reduce the number of instructors, particularly in the math and English departments, while hiring more tenure-track faculty. In addition, some lower-level courses that currently have approximately 20 to 40 students per section would be combined into classes with possibly hundreds of students.
Arts and Sciences Interim Dean Guillermo Ferreyra said although no instructors have been removed yet, the math department has sent letters of contract non-renewals to 10 instructors for the fall 2004 semester and 10 more for the fall 2005 semester.
Malcolm Richardson, English department chairman, said 14 full-time instructors in the department were given non-renewal letters for the fall 2004 semester.
Richardson said the department is not trying to put instructors “out on the street,” and that certain procedures are in place for the removal of instructors.
“No full-time instructor can be terminated without at least six months or a year’s notice, depending on how long they’ve been employed,” Richardson said.
Although the college will not formally hire new professors until next fall, Ferreyra said possible candidates already are visiting the University.
“Math and English are in the midst of on-campus interviews with two or three candidates visiting per week,” Ferreyra said.
Ferreyra said the math and English departments are trying to fill six professor positions each, while other departments in the college are trying to fill 12 professor positions.
The changes will not end there. Ferreyra said at least two math courses, Math 1022 and Math 1431, will have “a new delivery method.”
Currently, those courses have several sections with approximately 44 students in each class. Beginning next fall, Ferreyra said those courses will be presented with three hours of lectures in large sections in the 1,000-seat Cox Communications Center for Academic Success.
In addition to the lectures, Ferreyra said the courses would contain one hour of recitation in sections of approximately 28 students with an instructor or graduate student. The college also plans to implement online graded homework and computer testing to the courses.
Lawrence Smolinsky, interim math department chairman, said 14 faculty members currently are in the process of re-designing the trigonometry and business calculus courses.
“There is a large number of faculty involved because it is a big job of great importance to create interesting and educationally effective courses for the large audience that these courses command,” Smolinsky said.
Richardson said many first-year writing and other general education English courses would remain very similar to the way they currently are presented. However, Richardson said the department does plan to offer two large-enrollment general education classes each semester.
Although the college has had financial difficulties in the past, Ferreyra said the changes are not associated with budget problems.
“The measures taken are in no way meant to reduce budgets,” Ferreyra said. “Quite on the contrary, the budgets of math and English are receiving substantial increases to upgrade instructor lines into professorial lines.”
In addition, Ferreyra said other University officials continue to support the new moves.
“The University administration is supporting the changes with significant new investments and funds for planning, training faculty, purchasing equipment and software and recruitment and salaries of new faculty,” Ferreyra said.