Trustees set to vote on Wythes proposal

The University Board of Trustees will meet tomorrow to vote on the Wythes Committee Report and the 500-student increase it recommends.

"We will discuss the report at the meeting," committee chairman Paul Wythes '55 said. "We may need to make some very minor changes, but we will take a vote on the full report."

Since the Wythes report was approved for distribution to the University community at the trustees' January meeting, Wythes has met with student leaders, faculty department heads and administrators.

Wythes said he has considered student concerns that the increase in size might adversely affect the quality of education at the University. Wythes said, however, that he and his committee believe many of these concerns were addressed in the original report.

According to the Wythes proposal, the Dean of the Faculty would have the authority to allocate full-time equivalents — faculty slots now filled by chairs of individual departments. "[The Dean of the Faculty] can then redistribute the FTEs to oversubscribed departments," Wythes said.

"The oneto two-percent increase [in faculty size] is set in stone though 2004," he said. "With that in mind, we will have to alter the departments through the allocation of FTEs. You can expect to see increases in the overly popular departments."

The report also recommends the construction of a sixth residential college to accommodate the new students. The location of the new college, however, will not be decided by the Wythes committee, Wythes said.

"That is being handled by the building and grounds committee. The University has already hired an architectural planning firm," Wythes said. "There are sites on campus for a new residential college, but we have to weigh the aesthetic and architectural consequences of construction."

If the report passes, the administration will take over the implementation of the plan, Wythes said. "The administration will be in charge," he explained, indicating that enacting the proposals will not happen immediately. "The increase in students would not occur for at least three to four years."