Although Ohio University colleges managed not to lay off tenured or tenure-track faculty in the most recent round of budget cuts, they did lose non-tenured faculty positions and will suffer from unfilled vacancies, reductions many deans say could negatively impact instruction.
Greg Shepherd, dean of the Scripps College of Communication, said the cuts' most likely impact will be on the number of courses the college can offer.
It is going to be very difficult (to cover courses)
he said, adding that faculty workload as far as courses will not change.
However, in the college's budget reduction report, Shepherd acknowledged faculty workload in administrative areas might increase because of staff cuts.
OU's president asked Scripps to cut $493,372 from its base budget for next year. Shepherd cut four faculty jobs to reach that goal.
The College of Arts and Sciences will find itself offering more courses taught by part-time faculty, Dean Ben Ogles said. The college moved 10 faculty on early retirement to full retirement, meaning it's losing the equivalent of one and a third tenured or tenure-track faculty members.
Does that hurt our instructional capacity? Yeah a little bit Ogles said. (But) by and large
we're going to be able to teach the same number of classes as last quarter
but the distribution will be different.
Ogles explained it is less expensive for the college to hire eight adjuncts to teach eight classes (spending maybe $15,000 and not providing health care) rather than one professor who might cost $60,000 with benefits. Although the college did not fire faculty, the elimination of positions means Ogles won't be able to hire additional full-time professors next year.
The dean said the downside to that distribution is part-time faculty are not required to spend time outside of class, so students may not have the same access to them as they would to a full-time faculty member.
We still do a darn good job of keeping tenured and tenure-track faculty in the classroom
but it will affect us
and there's just no way you can doubt that
Ogles said.
Arts and Sciences was given about $2.1 million as a reduction goal. In his reduction report, Ogles estimated
losing a minimum of five additional tenure-track jobs and 21.5 additional teaching positions.
Dennis Irwin, dean of the Russ College of Engineering and Technology, described a strategy similar to Ogles'. Irwin cut the equivalent of four full-time faculty jobs, limiting his hiring options for next year.
(The positions) were not filled as faculty positions at the time
he said. So the immediate impact on students is going to be minimal.
The College of Business eliminated two full-time positions, though neither was tenure-track, according to Dean Hugh Sherman.
We changed the way we're doing curriculum so we could do that
Sherman said, explaining he eliminated a course devoted to writing and incorporated a writing focus into several other existing courses. I don't think that we really hurt the students.
The business and engineering colleges also each moved one professor from early retirement to full retirement to meet reduction goals of $419,893 and $550,949, respectively.
The College of Fine Arts relied on early and full retirements to meet its target $527,352 cut. Dean Charles McWeeny wrote in his report that he was pleased to be able to protect tenure-track jobs, but that the retirements cause a shift in the mission of the college.
McWeeny could not be reached for further comment, but Ann Fidler, interim associate provost for strategic initiatives, said through a spokesperson that the cuts create critical vacancies
but the college will prioritize accordingly in the future.
- Caitlin Bowling contributed to this story.
