The frustration associated with registering for classes has grown common at the University, but according to several College officials, additional faculty may not provide any relief.
The history department is searching for two new faculty members to begin teaching in the fall of 2001, according to History Department Chairman Michael Holt.
The searches "weren't launched specifically to offer more classes" to meet student demand, Holt said. Instead, the new professors will replace people who have resigned or retired, he said.
The acquisition of additional faculty members will have the ancillary effect of providing more classes and satisfying student demand, he added.
Jeffrey Legro, acting chairman for the government and foreign affairs department, disagreed that hiring more full-time professors will help alleviate the crunch.
Usually when more funds are appropriated for full-time salaries, funding for adjunct professors is cut, Legro said. Therefore, increased hiring in the government and foreign affairs department will not result in more classes or more professors.
Legro called the faculty search in his department "an ongoing effort to get up to our full strength-faculty."
English department Chairman Michael Levenson said his department is hiring new faculty members with the hope of gaining two or three new professors for next year.
While Levenson admitted the English department's hiring is independent of student demand, he said he hopes the additional professors will help lessen the unmet demand for courses. Rising numbers of both majors and non-majors interested in English classes are increasing demand.
He also questioned whether ISIS is exacerbating the class shortage problem.
Perhaps ISIS is "creating an illusory demand on top of the actual demand" when students register for more classes than they plan to take, he added.
It is rational for students to take advantage of the opportunity to register for additional classes without being required to finalize a schedule until several weeks after the new semester starts, Levenson said.
The problem could be best described in the words of a colleague, who said students who are behaving rationally will create this problem.
Faculty Senate Chairwoman Patricia H. Werhane said course shortage seems to be a "perennial problem" and the Faculty Senate would "fight for working on this issue."
College Dean Melvyn P. Leffler agreed with Werhane and other University officials and faculty organiztions that the "College certainly needs additional faculty," and that some departments need them more than others.
But Leffler added that "some years, some departments experience these pressures more than other years," depending on factors such as the number of professors on sabbatical and the configuration of classes.
The University continues to hire additional faculty members through private funding because it has not received any extra state money for that purpose, he said.
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