The decision to replace West campus part-time professors with tenured faculty next semester has drawn praise and criticism from students on campus.
The release of faculty-associate professors, or temporary faculty members, is a move that West campus Vice President Elizabeth Langland said she thinks is the right investment for West students. The release would bring the school a better standing in the academic world by hiring more tenured instructors.
"Hiring full-time faculty is more expensive, not less expensive, than hiring temporary faculty, but it's the right investment for the students," Langland said.
Langland would not reveal the number of faculty associates released, but all of these teachers are expected to be let go.
"Temporary faculties are, by definition, temporary," Langland said. "They are appointed semester by semester to teach courses that we may need because a full-time faculty member is on sabbatical leave, a faculty position is temporarily vacant or a faculty member suddenly goes on medical leave."
However, some students see the hiring of more tenured faculty and the release of temporary ones as a move to garner more money for the University.
Georgina and Sandi Shamon, West campus students and sisters, have differing views on the issue.
"It is hard to tell such qualified professors that their service is no longer needed, especially after the fact that they [have] done such an admirable job teaching students," said Georgina Shamon, a criminal justice senior. "To let go of professors with Ph.D.s just seems like nonsense to me."
But Sandi Shamon, an elementary education junior, said hiring more full-time faculty could raise academic standards at the campus.
"It is hard to see some of the favorite professors go, but for the greater good, we may want to put our trust into the hands of the administrators," she said. "After all, they are accountable to higher-ups themselves."
Andrew Clark, a history junior, said he thinks many of the University's best professors probably don't want to be tenured because they love to teach, not do research.
"There are certain work loads required of tenured faculty that is not required of [faculty associates]," Clark said. "They trade off steady pay and benefits for the chance to teach for the love of teaching. They are not like the substitute teacher at the local high school."
Langland said the faculty cutback will mean adding new classes to the West campus course schedule and 17 new full-time faculty.
In a letter to faculty regarding the cutbacks that were to take place, Langland stated that no non-elective classes were being dropped from the schedule.
Her letter stated that West campus administration has "added general education, core, critical-tracking and major courses to meet the needs of students and to ensure that they can graduate in timely fashion. … We have cancelled some elective courses. Other courses we have suppressed; we can add them if we see that enrollments justify their addition."
However, when searching for classes on West campus's online search, it does appear that the West campus has canceled many required courses for graduation, most notably political science, physiology and night classes.
And, when searching online for the addition of English courses, which Langland stated in her letter to the faculty would be added, none of these courses appeared for the fall 2008 semester.
Some students have said that they think there was a lack of communication on the part of University administration with students in notifying them of these cutbacks.
But Langland said she has done her best to stay in contact with students at the West campus and to effectively deal with their needs and concerns.
"In my letter to students, I invited those with questions or concerns to call or e-mail me," Langland said, adding that she was forming a student advisory committee to give feedback on the changes and help explain them to the West community.
Reach the reporter at: joseph.hermiz@asu.edu.
