Strengthening and Diversifying the Faculty

Meeting Enrollment Growth

The University projects that student enrollments will increase by 8.3 percent over the next 10 years. In the past decade, enrollments in the College have gone up by 11 percent, while our tenure-track faculty numbers have remained essentially flat. One of the most important factors contributing to our national ranking is our student-faculty ratio, and a key element of the U.Va. identity is our small average class size compared to other public universities. The need for new faculty is particularly acute in programs that have seen disproportionately large enrollment growth, especially the social sciences and psychology. We cannot absorb the large cohort of additional students that are coming, nor can we advance in the national rankings, unless we make a concerted effort to hire more faculty across the curriculum. Goal: Increase the size of the Arts & Sciences tenured and tenure-track faculty by 100 (or about 20 percent) over the next 10 years.

Building Endowments for Faculty Positions

Endowed chairs are our most prestigious faculty positions and represent powerful recruitment and retention tools for eminent faculty. We must increase the number of endowed chairs in Arts & Sciences, with a particular emphasis on at-large chairs that can be used flexibly in any academic field. It will also be critical to create new endowed junior faculty positions to recruit the most talented faculty early in their careers. Goal: Increase the number of endowed chairs in Arts & Sciences by 10 percent and create 10 endowed junior faculty positions.

Supporting Efforts to Diversify the Faculty

Recruiting and retaining a talented and diverse faculty is a high priority for Arts & Sciences. We need flexible funds to support faculty recruitment efforts aimed at generating a deep and diverse applicant pool, and to finance target-of-opportunity hires as they emerge. Having a diverse faculty leads to an innovative, diverse curriculum. In our recruitment planning, we must be particularly attentive to searches in fields most likely to generate candidates with diverse backgrounds and disciplinary perspectives.Goal: Deepen support for diversity efforts in faculty recruitment and establish a contingency fund to respond flexibly to opportunities to hire faculty from underrepresented groups.

Investing in Science Faculty

The College is committed to a special effort to build the sciences. Our strategy is to make investments in areas with the best prospects for having a major impact. These include departments that are already ranked highly, programs that the university has selected as priorities, and areas where strength exists across several departments (and schools) so we can leverage a "virtual" size advantage.Goal: By 2015, have at least two science departments ranked in the top 15 in the country and have at least 10 faculty who are members of the National Academy of Sciences.

Increasing Operating and Administrative Support for Faculty

We must provide faculty with basic operating resources and the support staff necessary to ensure that they can flourish. Faculty require basic funding to pay for office supplies and telecommunications, to conduct research and present their work at conferences, to acquire instructional technology, to purchase laboratory supplies, and to fulfill every aspect of the core mission. The College needs more administrative staff, technology specialists, lab technicians, and other personnel who support the fundamental operations of Arts & Sciences and without whom the University cannot function. We must also ensure that the College can provide appropriate compensation to staff, as well as professional development opportunities, both of which are critical to recruiting and retaining the best employees and building a strong, experienced workforce.Goal: Increase the College’s non-personnel operating budget by 20 percent and add 15 staff lines.

Building New Facilities to Accommodate Faculty Expansion

New tuition revenues and state support will make it possible for the College to hire dozens of new faculty in the next five years, but there is nowhere to put them. The College has a shortage of over 300,000 square feet of space relative to peer institutions, over half of which is in faculty offices and research labs. The South Lawn Project, with over 80,000 square feet dedicated to offices and related academic spaces, will fulfill space needs in a number of humanities and social sciences departments, as well as free up other space across Grounds that will allow us to improve the situation in the College as a whole. Additional offices, studios, and laboratory spaces will be needed in the arts, social sciences, and sciences to accommodate the faculty we must hire to meet enrollment growth and increase our sponsored research.Goal: Build sufficient office and laboratory space to keep pace with the growth of the faculty and allow for expansion of the research mission.

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