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Departments feel chill of hiring freeze

University Core to face faculty shortages as a result of Xavier’s financial woes

John LaFollette
Editor-in-Chief

The freeze on hiring at Xavier that was enacted as a result of the university’s budget shortfall, has translated into tough times for some undergraduate departments, according to their chairs.

In an e-mail communiqué to all faculty members, Academic Vice President and Provost Roger Fortin announced an indefinite suspension of hiring tenure-track professors.

For the English, Philosophy and Math departments, three of the five non-elective requirements of the University Core, this freeze means that they will be unable to fill positions that are currently vacant.

The History and Theology departments, the other two Core requirements, will be, at least in the short term, largely unaffected by the freeze.
English and Math have both been forced to suspend the hiring for three faculty positions each.

Dr. Alison Russell, chair of the English department, said that her department had been accepting applicants for the positions vacated by Drs. Christina Fisanik and Kara Jean Northway.

Both Fisanik and Northway taught the Rhetoric and Composition courses, which are components of the University Core.

“Between those two, we have lost a good part of our writing faculty,” Russell said.

Northway was also the department’s Shakespeare specialist. Russell said that this position in particular would hurt the department, since a course in Shakespeare is a requirement for undergraduate and graduate level degrees in English.

“[The hiring suspension] has a domino effect on everything we do,” said Russell.

“My mailbox is stuffed with applications, and unfortunately we won’t be able to hire any of those people,” she said.

The Philosophy department has also stopped accepting applications for its two vacant positions, according to department chair Dr. Richard Polt.

On his desk is a stack of about a dozen form letters that will be sent to those who have already applied, indicating that the university is no longer hiring.

And while department faculty will likely be stretched a little thin, Polt said there is “not a dire need” for those positions to be filled.

“The question is more about the long-term future of the department,” he said.

Russell said she recognizes that Fortin is doing his best to protect the jobs of current Xavier employees, but she thinks that “a more strategic freeze” could have been possible.

Polt said that faculty were notified on Oct. 16, and that, as he understood it, faculty were not involved in the decision to suspend hiring.

Instead, he said, there was “consultation after the fact.”

He said that there is a faculty assembly scheduled for Nov. 11 that he hopes will answer a number of questions that faculty have.

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Faculty to vote on more diverse core

Emily Hoferer
Managing Editor

The Xavier University faculty will vote on an initiative to implement six credit hours of cultural diversity from two separate disciplines into the university’s core curriculum.

“This is not an expansion of the number of hours,” said Dr. Carol Rankin, chair for the Board of Undergraduate Studies.

But rather, it will be an inclusion of more diversity studies within the Core.

Under the new proposal, six hours of cultural diversity will be required. Students will be “able to complete these hours similar to the ER/S course, complete within the major or minor requirements or other core requirements.”

Dr. Margot Heydt, co-director of the Gender and Diversity minor said, “a few years ago, Dr. Roger Fortin, requested that the Gender and Diversity Studies Minor Steering Committee develop a proposal for enhancing the current core curriculum diversity requirement of one credit, EPU.”

The Gender and Diversity Studies Minor Steering Committee, chaired by Heydt and Dr. Tyrone Williams, created the proposal of six credit hours of diversity.

“The proposal is an attempt to incorporate diverse perspective within the curriculum, perspective that mirrors those of our growing and complex world,” said Williams.

The steering committee sent the proposal to the three departments on campus for comments, as well as the deans of each college and the college curriculum committee.

From that an ad hoc curriculum task force assessed the comments and sent to it to the Board of Undergraduate Studies.

After revision from the Gender and Diversity Studies committee, the Board of Undergraduate Studies recommended that the proposal be brought to a faculty vote last spring.

The Board of Undergraduate Studies was optimistic that the vote on the proposal would be sometime this fall, if not sometime this academic year.
Dr. Williams said that the vote has been postponed before.

The Board of Undergraduate Studies reviews academic programs, including diversity requirements, and approves new programs, such as the addition of a class, major or minor and the changes in requirements for a major or minor. The board consists of the deans of each college, faculty representatives from each college, the registrar and students appointed by SGA president Craig Scanlon.

Senior Katy Baldwin is one of the appointed students to BUGS. If this proposal is passed a result from the majority faculty vote it will “diversify the credits that you do take,” said Baldwin.

Dr. Rankin said that they have not finished establishing the procedures they will have to take to see which classes will count for a cultural diversity credit. If the proposal is passed she said that there will be a standing committee that oversees the focus and approve the courses to take in that focus.

Baldwin had some concerns with the logistics and implementation, as well, but was in full support of more diversity in the core. She said that there is a push for diversity on campus and “the classroom is the final piece.”

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