Lost opportunities in Econ Department
The university's crisis in a microcosm
Gregory Royal Pratt
Issue date: 3/15/10 Section: News
The Department of Economics at UIC is a perfect example of all that has gone wrong for the university in the last half-year.
Econ began the fall semester with the expectation that it would be able to take positive steps forward as a program. But things did not quite work out that way as the university's budget crisis deepened.
The department began the year with a new Head, Dr. David Merriman, who was recruited from the College of Urban Planning and Public Administration and the Institute for Government and Public Affairs to lead the Economics Department. Merriman's first priority as department head was to hire new, young faculty members.
"We've lost a large number of faculty members over the last few years and we're rebuilding," said Merriman in a previously unpublished interview with the Flame last fall.
The need for new hires is paramount for most departments on campus. Over the last two decades, the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences has shrunk from over 600 faculty members to a little over three hundred. The Department of Economics is in a particularly difficult situation.
"There is a shortage of young people," said Merriman in the same interview. "We have only one assistant professor. The average faculty member has been on faculty for a number of years. That is both a challenge and an opportunity, as they say."
The average age of faculty is an issue that needs to be looked at by the broader academic community at UIC. While it is important to have a quality senior faculty -- and, in almost all departments, UIC does have quality senior faculty -- a college runs the risk of falling behind the times if it does not hire enough junior tenure-track faculty. This becomes especially problematic if the old faculty members aren't replaced at the same rate as they retire, which is what is happening at UIC.
New faculty is needed for several reasons. Class sizes have gotten too large and are getting larger. The quality of classroom instruction is diminishing as the university begins relying more on lecturers and adjuncts. And graduate programs are going to suffer, too, as a result of diminishing faculty. PhD programs need faculty members who will mentor graduate students. As faculty shrinks, programs will shrink and remaining faculty members will be forced to take on a high workload. Some professors would tell you that they have too much going on now, as it is. And graduate students -- who live around the poverty line -- will find it more difficult to do their work.
Econ began the fall semester with the expectation that it would be able to take positive steps forward as a program. But things did not quite work out that way as the university's budget crisis deepened.
The department began the year with a new Head, Dr. David Merriman, who was recruited from the College of Urban Planning and Public Administration and the Institute for Government and Public Affairs to lead the Economics Department. Merriman's first priority as department head was to hire new, young faculty members.
"We've lost a large number of faculty members over the last few years and we're rebuilding," said Merriman in a previously unpublished interview with the Flame last fall.
The need for new hires is paramount for most departments on campus. Over the last two decades, the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences has shrunk from over 600 faculty members to a little over three hundred. The Department of Economics is in a particularly difficult situation.
"There is a shortage of young people," said Merriman in the same interview. "We have only one assistant professor. The average faculty member has been on faculty for a number of years. That is both a challenge and an opportunity, as they say."
The average age of faculty is an issue that needs to be looked at by the broader academic community at UIC. While it is important to have a quality senior faculty -- and, in almost all departments, UIC does have quality senior faculty -- a college runs the risk of falling behind the times if it does not hire enough junior tenure-track faculty. This becomes especially problematic if the old faculty members aren't replaced at the same rate as they retire, which is what is happening at UIC.
New faculty is needed for several reasons. Class sizes have gotten too large and are getting larger. The quality of classroom instruction is diminishing as the university begins relying more on lecturers and adjuncts. And graduate programs are going to suffer, too, as a result of diminishing faculty. PhD programs need faculty members who will mentor graduate students. As faculty shrinks, programs will shrink and remaining faculty members will be forced to take on a high workload. Some professors would tell you that they have too much going on now, as it is. And graduate students -- who live around the poverty line -- will find it more difficult to do their work.
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