Spring Break
Adjunct faculty cut under budget pressure
Kate King
Issue date: 2/4/09 Section: News
Editors Note: This is the first in a three-part series examining how state budget cuts are impacting UConn.
A quiet casualty of the university's recent budget cuts has been the positions of many adjunct faculty members, whose absences foreshadow larger class sizes and fewer course offerings.
In the math and English departments, in which almost every UConn student takes at least one course during his or her undergraduate career, budgetary pressures have already forced department heads to trim adjunct faculty, with more cuts expected for the next academic year. Adjuncts are hired on a semester by semester basis and paid a stipend for each course they teach.
"Some of our adjuncts have taught for a good number of years," said Miki Neumann, head of UConn's math department. "They knew our students; they knew the structure of our courses. Some of them had very specialized capabilities which are almost irreplaceable."
The math department eliminated five adjunct positions from the fall to spring semester of this year, Neumann said. There are now four adjuncts in the department, with one teaching only half a course.
The decision was made when the university's rescission forced the department to cut 3.5 percent of its budget, with $215,000 being cut this year and $72,000 more being cut next academic year.
"The only way we could come up with something like a $215,000 cut, a small portion of it, was cutting out the adjuncts, who were very dear to us," Neumann said. "It's very, very hard to replace the adjuncts when you need to."
The department may discontinue the lower-level math course Problem Solving, which many non-math majors take to fulfill their quantitative (Q) course requirement, as a result of staff reductions.
"We would like to offer it, but we might not," Neumann said. "Part of the reason is because it's a more descriptive course so sometimes it takes better teachers and better coordinators to teach it. It's easier to provide instructors for most structured courses such as (Elementary Discrete Mathematics)."
A quiet casualty of the university's recent budget cuts has been the positions of many adjunct faculty members, whose absences foreshadow larger class sizes and fewer course offerings.
In the math and English departments, in which almost every UConn student takes at least one course during his or her undergraduate career, budgetary pressures have already forced department heads to trim adjunct faculty, with more cuts expected for the next academic year. Adjuncts are hired on a semester by semester basis and paid a stipend for each course they teach.
"Some of our adjuncts have taught for a good number of years," said Miki Neumann, head of UConn's math department. "They knew our students; they knew the structure of our courses. Some of them had very specialized capabilities which are almost irreplaceable."
The math department eliminated five adjunct positions from the fall to spring semester of this year, Neumann said. There are now four adjuncts in the department, with one teaching only half a course.
The decision was made when the university's rescission forced the department to cut 3.5 percent of its budget, with $215,000 being cut this year and $72,000 more being cut next academic year.
"The only way we could come up with something like a $215,000 cut, a small portion of it, was cutting out the adjuncts, who were very dear to us," Neumann said. "It's very, very hard to replace the adjuncts when you need to."
The department may discontinue the lower-level math course Problem Solving, which many non-math majors take to fulfill their quantitative (Q) course requirement, as a result of staff reductions.
"We would like to offer it, but we might not," Neumann said. "Part of the reason is because it's a more descriptive course so sometimes it takes better teachers and better coordinators to teach it. It's easier to provide instructors for most structured courses such as (Elementary Discrete Mathematics)."
Viewing Comments 1 - 1 of 1
Janice Trecker
posted 2/05/09 @ 9:17 AM EST
Congratulations on a good and timely article.
Thanks.
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