President Sorensen will propose to University trustees June 30 a plan to add about 150 new faculty members during the next six years.

The positions would be paid for with funds derived from tuition increases. The University presently has between 1,000 and 1,100 tenure or tenure-track faculty members.
The additional faculty will help reduce the faculty/student ratio from 16.4:1, projected for this fall, to 15:1. In 2000, the ration was 14:1.

“You are not only producing more research, more grants, and more contracts,” said Sorensen, referring to the University’s record year for research grants and contracts, “but you’re also teaching more students.”

Sorensen estimates a total of about 600 new faculty members will be hired during the next six years. Besides the 150 additional new faculty positions paid for with tuition funds, 350 faculty members must be hired to replace faculty who currently are in the TERI program and will retire within the next five years.

Another 100 new faculty members will be recruited through the Office of Research’s Centenary Plan, which will support half of their salaries and fringe benefits for three years. The respective hiring units will be responsible for the faculty members’ full salary packages after three years.

“We’ll be adding a net of 100 faculty positions a year over six years,” Sorensen said. “I need your help with that. It’s going to be a huge undertaking. I honestly believe that it will have a huge impact on the academic mission and the quality of the University, and we’ll have a more equal distribution of the faculty load.”

Sorensen will propose to the board $1.2 million in recurring money for salary compression to bring up the salaries of faculty members who were hired when salaries were substantially lower than they are now.

“The provost and the department chairs will work on who is eligible for that,” Sorensen said. “We have not determined the amounts yet, but if, for example, it was determined that 100 faculty members were substantially underpaid, that would be an average of $12,000 per faculty member in perpetuity on top of this year’s 3 percent raise. So, there’s an opportunity for redress for people who have been inappropriately paid.”

Sorensen also will propose an 11 percent increase in tuition at the board meeting. Since he became president in the summer of 2002, the University’s state appropriations have been cut by $65 million. The last three tuition increases combined yielded $40 million, leaving a deficit of $25 million, and the University’s operating costs continue to rise, he said.

“The utility bill just for the Columbia campus is going up $1.8 million for the coming year, from $13 million to almost $15 million,” Sorensen said. “You can’t keep getting less money from the state legislature and keep having increases in operations without compensating for it in a variety of ways.”

All four candidates selected by a search committee for the position of provost have visited campus. Sorensen said he hopes to announce a new provost by the end of July.

Six candidates are on the short list for the deanship of the new College of Arts and Sciences, but the interviewing process for the position will not continue until a new provost is in place, Sorensen said.

6/04