The chairs of the University's smaller departments are promising to cling to their faculty a little more tightly these days after a suggestion by Paul Wythes '55 that the University redistribute its faculty to accommodate his committee's proposed addition of 500 undergraduate students.
Wythes said in an interview this week that as a faculty member of a smaller department retired or left the University, he would not necessarily be replaced. Instead, the position would be transferred to a large department with a higher demand for faculty.
The proposed redistribution assumes that the 500 new students will follow current patterns in selecting their majors, Wythes noted.
The anticipated influx into the University's larger departments — such as economics, history and English — would produce a greater demand for faculty in those departments. Smaller departments, however, such as those in the foreign languages, would likely experience a much smaller increase in demand relative to their size.
The faculty redistribution plan will be complicated because nearly every department chair has cited inadequate staffing and asked for additional faculty members, according to Dean of the Faculty Joseph Taylor. He said, however, that "one of the main responsibilities" of his office has always been "setting priorities."
"The Wythes committee was just reaffirming an existing policy," Taylor said, referring to the reallocation of faculty.
Faculty reactions
Faculty members, however, responded with mixed feelings to the faculty redistribution.
"[The redistribution] strikes me as the decision of a business person, not an academic," said German department chair Michael Jennings. Jennings — whose department has fewer than 20 concentrators — suggested the University take steps to increase student awareness of the smaller departments.
"The University as a whole with the faculty and administration is going to have to take a very hard look at distribution patterns among concentrators," he said. "We'll soon have to ask ourselves the question: How many economists is it useful for an institution to have?"
History department chair Philip Nord said the University should "allow a little expansion in departments that end up carrying a disproportionate load." Nord said the Dean of the Faculty's office has accommodated his department's request for additional faculty in the past because the department has added courses in African-American, Jewish and Third World history.
Nord — whose department has more than 250 concentrators — said he is content with the redistribution policy. He noted that "for departments that find themselves overburdened, this will give us some breathing room." He said, however, that he "wouldn't want to think that Peter is being robbed to pay Paul."
Music department chair Paul Lansky said faculty members in his department would "feel terrible" if they lost any faculty. "We're running at a bare minimum of the people that we need to cover our fields and to cover our course demands," he said.
Chair of the religion department Martha Himmelfarb said her department would be weakened by a loss of faculty members. "I certainly don't think we have faculty to lose," she said. "I'd be truly disappointed to lose any of them or to lose any of their slots."
Slavic languages chair Charles Townsend said he is not worried the redistribution will take faculty from his department. "If you cut us at all, you kind of don't have a department," he said.
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