200 more students - impact on housing and dining?

interesteddad
Fri, 09 Oct 2009 02:20:51 +0000

Here’s the relevant passage. Page 6 of the ABC Report PDF:

https://www.amherst.edu/media/view/119548/original/ABC%2BReport%2BFINAL.pdf



The ABC recommends the expedited hiring of regular faculty so as to reach the currently budgeted cap on the number of tenure-track faculty FTEs. We further recommend that this cap be increased by one, to 168, in FY2011 and sustained at this level in FY2012.

In 2006, the Faculty endorsed the CAP‟s recommendation to add a total of 18 additional tenure-track faculty FTEs gradually, in order to support curricular innovation and to ensure that the College‟s student-faculty ratio remains small as the size of the student body increases. Since that time, two of these positions have been added, raising the cap on the number of authorized tenure-track faculty FTEs from 165 to 167. However, Amherst had not filled all of its available faculty positions before the economic downturn, due in part to an unpredictable number of retirements and other departures from the College, as well as to the uncertain outcomes of tenure-track searches. When the financial crisis hit, the College also postponed four previously approved tenure-track searches. As a result, for the coming academic year (FY2010), only 160 of the 167 authorized FTEs will have been filled.

The CEP and the CPR expressed clear concerns about the pressures that faculty members, departments, and programs experience when the size of the Faculty does not keep pace with the number of students. Such pressures have consequences for the curriculum and the quality of the education that Amherst provides. Because increasing the size of the student body also increases the College‟s revenue to some degree, we believe it is important that the addition of students proceeds as planned. To foster the close colloquy that is the hallmark of an Amherst education, the ABC views increasing the size of the Faculty as a matter of urgency. The ABC recommends that one additional tenure-track FTE be added in FY2011, to bring the cap on the size of the Faculty to 168 FTEs. We further recommend that the College aggressively seek to hire faculty members so that this cap is reached as quickly as possible. Maintaining the size of the Faculty relative to the student body is so vital to Amherst‟s mission that we ask the Board to discuss with the College‟s senior administration what steps they can take to expedite this process.



There’s a section immediately following that on the visiting faculty numbers. The entire document is chock full of detailed information on the financial situation and the planned cuts. To their credit, Amherst has released a lot of information about their situation, as has Middlebury.