www.newsrecord.org/sections/opinion/uc-not-keeping-up-w -
[Cached Version]
Published on: 5/20/2009
Last Visited: 7/3/2009
While UC is in no real danger of bankruptcy, the phrase "too big to fail" - all too familiar to most of us now - seems to echo when Valerie Hardcastle, dean of Arts & Sciences, said "[The record 2009-10 freshman enrollment] is not that big of an increase for [A&S] to manage, because we're so big already."
Wow. UC's largest college accounts for 20 percent of university majors, and with 5,200 freshman currently enrolled for the fall, A&S alone will see about a 13 percent increase, or about 500 students, for A&S faculty to handle, Hardcastle said.
Not all of those students will be calling A&S their home college, but roughly 47 percent of all undergraduates will have to take classes in the college, most notably the English composition sequence, to satisfy core requirements for graduation.
Because A&S teaches students outside the college as well, tuition dollars are collected from those students, but they aren't as profitable as A&S majors.
In January, at a town-hall style meeting for A&S faculty, Hardcastle said, "If we don't [increase enrollment], we'll have to cut faculty.
She also reported a projected $4.9 million deficit, which would require the college to increase its enrollment by 500 majors to avoid any more cuts to the operating budget or personnel.
Well, enrollment has increased, but the uncertainty of Gov.
Strickland's budget passing still looms.
"Right now, I think it's looking pretty solid that his budget will pass or something close enough to it, that we'll be OK," Hardcastle said.
...
Hardcastle said A&S is planning to hire more advisers, but did not say how many.
"We're hiring one new adviser right now," she said.
...
"One of the dorms that's closed was primarily for graduate students, so it doesn't affect the undergraduate population at all if it's closed," Hardcastle said.
"And we took over Stratford Heights, so I think in theory we can shift the undergraduates that were living in [Scioto] to Stratford Heights and come up with kind of a net-zero change."
So the graduate students still don't have a place to live on campus, there's still no mention of a new on-campus residence and their tuition is going to rise next year.
"It was noted at the [May 19] Board of Trustees meeting that [UC] is currently at capacity for dorm rooms, which is good for the university," Hardcastle said.
Is the university at capacity in terms of enrollment?
"No," Hardcastle said.
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