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INSIDE IOWA STATE
March 15, 2002
Senate decries loss of faculty
by Linda Charles
Based on current trends, by the year 2068 Iowa State will have no academic
journals, and by the year 2077, it will have no faculty, David Hopper told
the Faculty Senate during the March 5 meeting.
Hopper (who based his predictions on figures culled from the Board of
Regents, State of Iowa, Web site) said the loss of faculty has been a
"long-term policy" at Iowa State.
"While the recent budget crisis has had an impact on the number of tenured
faculty, the problem of the loss of faculty is not a recent one," said
Hopper, veterinary medicine and last year's senate president.
According to the regents' January docket, Iowa State had 1,059 faculty
members in 2001-02, a 17.5 percent decrease (225 positions) from the 1985-86
year.
He noted that neither the University of Iowa nor University of Northern Iowa
had experienced the same loss of faculty.
"Aren't the financial circumstances at UNI and the U of I the same as at
Iowa State? Are there philosophical differences in how the administrations
face budget cuts?" he asked.
"The policy of not filling open faculty positions to meet budget reductions
is seriously flawed," Hopper said. "This is one of the most serious problems
this institution has ever faced. We need to stand up as a faculty and get
this policy changed."
Hopper also told the senate that there has been about a 25 percent decline
in the number of serials purchased by the library in the past five years.
The senate unanimously passed a resolution asking the administration to
protect the number of faculty positions and library acquisitions from future
budget cuts.
Honors building resolution
In other business, the senate:
- Voted 55 to 10 to pass a resolution presented by Carl Mize,
forestry; John Robyt, biochemistry and biophysics; and Richard Hall,
forestry, to rescind the name of the Honors building, scheduled for
completion this month. The building is to be named the Martin C. Jischke
Honors Building, after Iowa State's 13th president. The senate resolution
calls for the building to be called "Honors Building" instead. The regents
have the final word on the building name.
- Passed a resolution endorsing efforts to save Morrill Hall as a
historic structure. (See
Morrill Hall story.)
- Approved general guidelines presented by the Task Force on Student
Evaluation of Teaching. The guidelines provide the general principles to
develop a new system of student evaluation of teaching.
The next senate meeting begins at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, March 26, in 260
Scheman.
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Ames, Iowa 50011, (515) 294-4111
Published by: University Relations,
online@iastate.edu
Copyright © 1995-2001, Iowa State University. All rights reserved.
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