Fourteen faculty positions added
By Kelly Morris
Staff Reporter

Fourteen new faculty positions will be added for the 2002-03 school year, university officials said Wednesday.

The additions come after the Board of Trustees approved $1.5 million dollars for the hiring of new faculty and instructional support staff in January.

According to the Provost’s office, the M.J. Neeley School of Business, the Add Ran College of Humanities and Social Sciences, the College of Communications, the College of Fine Arts and the College of Health and Human Sciences will each receive new faculty positions.

William Koehler, provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs, said the faculty positions were placed in the schools and colleges that had the most students.

Koehler said 25 faculty positions were requested by various departments, however he would not comment Wednesday on the breakdown of the number of positions requested by each department.

According to the Provost’s office, the Add Ran College will receive an assistant political science professor, an assistant criminal justice professor and an assistant Spanish professor and instructor.

James Riddlesperger, chairman of the political science department, said he was delighted to hear the department was receiving an additional faculty position.

“Like every department on campus, we felt like we needed new faculty to better serve our students’ needs,” he said. “There was a real crunch on all classes across campus, but it was especially felt in our department.”

Riddlesperger said with over 200 students currently majoring in political science, the department had the highest student to faculty ratio of all university departments last fall at 22.4 to 1.

Riddlesperger said the department’s need for faculty is not a new one.

“You don’t apply for faculty like you do a job,” he said. “You make the best case you can make, and it is then considered by the deans, the Provost and ultimately the Board of Trustees. We’ve felt like we needed faculty for a couple of years now.”

TCU reports overall student to faculty ratio as 15 to 1 and the total number of faculty and staff at approximately 1,300.

Bonnie Frederick, chairwoman of the Spanish and Latin American Studies, said because foreign language classes are limited to a class size of 25 students, it adds to the department’s faculty shortage problem.

“There is such a demand from employers for students with Spanish language skills and those who know the Latin American culture that our classes are full,” Frederick said. “We have to expand our offerings.”

Frederick said the department encourages students to seek Spanish as a second major. She said with the faculty increases, the department can expand their professional language offerings to Spanish for the business, criminal justice and health care professions.

“Everyone is realizing that people can use Spanish in their daily work without leaving the United States,” she said. “All Spanish programs across the country are experiencing an overflow. It’s a lovely problem to have, but it’s still a problem.”

Bill Moncrief, senior associate dean of the business school, said 1,650 students currently are majoring in business, 200 of which are business double majors. He said the number of majors has increased by 800, a 48.8 percent increase, in just the last five to six years.

“We’ve made so much progress,” Moncrief said. ”We have had to heavily rely on adjunct professors because of the size of the school. Adjunct professors do a good job, but because they work during the day, students do not get to know them.”

With the larger class size and enrollment in the Neeley School, Moncrief said it is affecting the student to faculty relationship.

“We couldn’t do what TCU does well,” he said. “Students were not getting that faculty to student relationship and that is what TCU is so good at doing.”

According to the Provost’s office, the business school will add positions for a decision sciences instructor, an associate professor to serve as the Management Information Services chairperson and two assistant professors to teach entrepreneurship strategy and finance.

Koehler said a position for an associate professor for kinesiology will be added in the College of Health and Human Services.

He said the position was needed for the university to be in compliance with the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools accreditation process.

The College of Communications will add positions for an instructor for graphics and two assistant professors for advertising and public relations and speech communications, according to the Provost’s office.

Tommy Thomason, chairman of the journalism department, said the college requested five faculty positions.

Scott Sullivan, dean of the college of fine arts, said the college, which requested four faculty positions and five staff positions, will receive positions for a music-cello assistant professor and a theater assistant professor.

He said the theater professor is vital to the department.

“The growth of the major has been quite drastic,” Sullivan said. “Seven years ago, we had just 30 majors and now we have over 100.”

Kelly Morris
k.l.morris@student.tcu.edu

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