In a welcome break from all the talk about cuts and layoffs at colleges and universities, comes the news that Saint Louis University’s medical school is expanding its newly created department of neurology and psychiatry by 13 faculty members, the St. Louis Business Journal reports:
The department, which currently has about 45 faculty members, recently appointed seven new professors. An additional professor, with a focus on forensic psychiatry, will join the department in January. SLU plans to fill another three neurology faculty spots and two psychiatry faculty positions within the next year.
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3 Responses to A Bit of Good News
physioprof - July 6, 2011 at 9:00 pm
You’re just trolling with that “fire one administrator” shitte, right?
echomikeromeo - July 7, 2011 at 5:56 am
Would the anti-trust laws that (regrettably, I think) prevent colleges from conferring about admissions and financial aid policies also prevent them from conferring about faculty hiring (and salary)?
Professor Zero - July 11, 2011 at 3:50 am
Hm – on #1, doesn’t Zenith have such courses already and isn’t it the faculty which designs curriculum already? This sounds like an advising issue — I notice gen ed students are often assigned to the courses in whatever discipline that would in fact be the least interesting to them. Also, there are better arguments for the humanities than “learning citizenship.” I’m all for cutting administration in favor of converting adjunct jobs into more real and better paid jobs, though.
On #2, you’d have to actually have other institutions nearby. We don’t, it would be a huge amount of driving for the faculty member, adjuncts do it briefly sometimes but never for long. We already share classes by video and online.
On #3, we do close programs, fire tenured faculty, and so on. And we do constantly produce documents with new explanations of the value of our fields. I am writing an external, institutional grant in which I am explaining the importance of having current books and journals in the library, and I am looking for fresh new ways to dress up this fact. All of this justification takes time from real work and unless you’re an adrenalin junkie, it isn’t exciting or renewing, it’s just draining.
I agree though about the boom and bust cycles. Not having funding for the library every year is a key example of not planning for the long term. My institution does try to think for the long term but the legislature/governor don’t really let it.
Of course, the way in which we already do all the things you suggest is a weak way — it’s always in response to already being broke. The strong way would mean spending money to set up the alliances. I come from a state where there was cooperation among institutions but here they are competing, and are not all under the same board, etc., and each one is its own world. I think it would take decades to develop a different culture / a different way of working together and lots of leadership, lots of travel money, etc. — and a government not trying to dismantle higher education.