By Associated Press
Lexington, KY – The University of Kentucky's new president will face a faculty that's being asked to strive for greatness with fewer and fewer resources.
The new president will take the helm in July, replacing outgoing president Lee Todd, who has steered the university for a decade. During that time, the overall number of faculty has increased 18 percent but the staffers haven't received pay raises in three years.
Ellen Rosenman, the chairwoman of the English Department, said she feels privileged to be in her job, but it's getting harder.
"I feel fortunate as a faculty member," she said, "But it's hard to do everything; you always have one more mission than you have the resources for," she said.
History professor Jim Albisetti told the Lexington Herald-Leader the overall financial situation which has led to smaller salaries and bigger classes has left faculty "dispirited."
But UK officials pointed out that, unlike many universities around the country, the university has not had mass layoffs or furloughs, and benefits have not been cut.
"We are terribly aware of other states laying people off," said Albisetti, "but the thought of any light at the end of the horizon is pretty hard to imagine."
The university is in the middle of a long-term push to become a Top 20 research university. When the nine measures UK uses are combined into a single score, UK ranks 37th out of 92 public research universities that do at least $20 million in federally sponsored research.
"I would say UK has been doing better compared to a number of our benchmarks, but it's hard to say how long that will continue because our budget is not improving," said Jim Tracy, UK's vice president for research.
After Tood released his Top 20 business plan in 2005, the state gave UK a boost with $20.9 million in increased funding, allowing the school to hire more than 74 new faculty members, 40 of whom went to work in the College of Arts and Science. UK has 1,521 full-time and 450 part-time faculty members.
"I'm surprised how many people came here because of the business plan," Todd told the newspaper. "There's still a buzz here and people say they want to be part of it."
Todd announced last year he will step down when his contract expires in June. A search committee is looking for his replacement.
Todd said his administration has worked hard on recruitment and retention.
In 2005, UK ranked at the bottom of its 20 benchmark institutions. Since then, UK's average faculty pay has risen 16 percent from $69,911 to $81,189. But it's still at the bottom of the list of comparison schools. The data on faculty salaries does not include the College of Medicine.
Todd said UK will do all it can to give employees raises in the next budget.
"Our faculty as a whole are way below the benchmarks in salary," Cassone said. "We're not even close. That's a big problem."
Some faculty members also complain about the need for updated facilities.
Sixty-six percent of UK buildings were built more than 30 years ago, and 30 percent of instructional space is more than 40 years old, according to a 2007 facilities study at UK. The study found that three-quarters of the 167 UK buildings it sized up needed remodeling at a cost of nearly $1.3 billion.
UK's continued struggle to provide more raises, higher staffing levels and facilities comes at a time when decreased state funding and a poor economy mean that money will be tight for the foreseeable future.
"There's a certain lack of faith that anything is going to happen," Art history professor Alice Christ said.