Additional faculty a priority for university
School committed to more research, graduate programs

By Jillanne Johnson
Staff Reporter

Adding faculty is key to raising TCU’s level of research while maintaining the university’s commitment to teaching, said Bill Moncrief, senior associate dean of the M.J. Neeley School of Business.

Moncrief said TCU has always been a strong teaching university, but he said increasing research is necessary. He said more faculty allows the university to have research faculty while still teaching classes.

“In order to have a higher-ranked university, we will have to have a higher level of research,” Moncrief said.

Ed Kolesar, chairman of the Faculty Senate tenure, promotions and grievances committee, said there is no real way to evaluate and rank teaching quality. He said research gives the world tangible ways, like publications, to evaluate a university.
“You can have markers (like tests and projects) of teaching but those are not saying that person is an effective teacher,” Kolesar said.

Mary Volcansek, dean of the AddRan College of Humanities and Social Sciences, said hiring more faculty would allow professors to reduce teaching loads to help prevent burn-out. This would allow professors to stay fresh and involved in their research.

“(Faculty) aren’t paid to work in the summer, yet most of them spend their summers doing writing and research,” Volcansek said.

Mike McCracken, dean of the College of Science and Engineering, said, however, the university has to be careful not to hire too many new faculty.

“If we do that, we change the nature of the university, and that’s something we need to guard against,” McCracken said.

But Volcansek said endowed professorships are a good way to increase the research productivity without increasing tuition or spending the university’s resources.

Endowing professorships are not paid for from tuition. Moncrief said they are salaried from an endowment created for that position. Endowed chairs are hired to teach one class a semester while focusing on research.

An important part of having these positions is fund raising. But even though AddRan has never really put much effort into fund raising, Volcansek said they need more resources than what the annual budget can provide.

Endowed professorships are created by a single major gift to the university.

McCracken said the university’s next capital campaign should include a wish list of endowed professorships.

“We will make known to potential donors that we have needs in all of these various areas,” McCracken said.

Moncrief said endowed professorships are typically good researchers with good national reputations.

“The more endowed chairs you can get, the higher the research level,” Moncrief said.

Even though students recognize the importance research has in the classroom, some say they would like professors to be available for consultation.

Matt Ravanesi, a sophomore business major, said he wants professors who know what is new and different in their field but at the same time concentrate on teaching.

“Good professors have contemporary information in their lectures,” Ravanesi said. “But I’d rather have a teacher who is focused on classes.”

Kolesar said another way to increase the research quality is to bolster graduate programs. This provides a base of doctoral candidates who can aide faculty in research. He said graduate programs help bring in external money, in the form of grants, and revenue.

“Our graduate programs are not as robust as (Ferrari) would like them to be,” Kolesar said. “Let’s make them stand on their own and have people want to come here.”

And by attracting top quality graduate students, Moncrief said it will also attract better faculty because of research capabilities. There is also a potential that these students would teach undergraduate classes as well.

Volcansek said a major issue involved is public relations. She said that when she arrived at the university, she expected to find a quality teaching staff, but was surprised at the amount and quality of research she found.

“Teaching here is primary, but the research productivity here is just as good,” she said.

However, McCracken said public relations is typically not part of professor’s culture, thinking and training. He said the university has to publicize within the colleges as well as to the public. Few of the professors in his college recognize what is going on in other departments, he said.

“We have to become more interdisciplinary to have a better understanding for what is going on throughout the college,” McCracken said.

Jillanne Johnson
j.johnson@student.tcu.edu