Faculty spotlighted at Senate meeting

The University Faculty Senate voted Nov. 5 to experiment with video-streaming and web conferencing of its meetings.

Introduced by the senate's executive committee, the resolution asked for the improved technology "to enable all faculty to observe and interact with senate proceedings and to create better quality recordings of those proceedings." After a discussion of potential costs, senators amended the resolution, suggesting experimentation with the new technology over the current academic year.

Jim Richards, senate president, said web conferencing might allow someone watching the proceedings to enter a concern or question, giving other faculty a doorway to the meeting. "This technology will allow others to look in, not replace the senate," he said.

At the beginning of the November Faculty Senate meeting, Acting Provost Dan Rich presented a profile of UD faculty over the last 10 years., which showed a significant growth in the University's professorate.

During the last decade, total faculty increased from 972 to 1,102. Rich pointed out that the total number of tenured faculty rose from 820 in 1991 to 860 in 2001, with the number of faculty on the non-tenure track increasing from 152 to 242.

Faculty numbers increased over the last 10 years in every college, except marine studies, which decreased by one, Rich said. Agriculture and Natural Resources increased from 60 to 84; Arts and Science increased from 545 to 557; Business and Economics rose from 86 to 103; and Engineering increased from 70 to 87. Two colleges that were created during that decade by combining smaller colleges also showed an increase in faculty. Heath and Nursing Sciences rose slightly from 71 to 73. Human Services, Education and Public Policy had the largest increase in faculty, rising from 91 to 143.

Looking at faculty distribution by rank, Rich illustrated a significant increase in full professors and only slight percentage changes in other ranks over the past decade. Currently, there are 410 full professors–an increase of 87 individuals since 1991. Associate professors increased by 13, to 321. Assistant professors total 256–an increase of 7 over the past 10 years, and 115 instructor/lecturers represent an increase of 23.

An important change for the University has been the dramatic increase in the number of endowed professorships, which have increased from 10 to more than 70 over the last 10 years, Rich said. He indicated that most of these newly endowed positions have been established as a result of the success of the Campaign for Delaware.

Faculty distribution by gender is a little better balanced, he said, but continues to be roughly two males to one female. UD's faculty remains more than 86 percent white, Rich told the senators, with the second largest percentage belonging to faculty of Asian ethnicity, totaling 7.4 percent. The percentage of black faculty has risen slightly, from 3.4 to 4 percent.

Age distribution charts show an aging faculty. Rich said that slightly less than 50 percent of faculty are now aged 50 and over, and the rate of retirement is increasing. In answer to a senator's question, he indicated that the aging professorate is "probably more than a local phenomenon." "Many faculty began their service at UD and other universities in the growth period of the 1960s and 1970s," he said. "Not surprisingly, the annual retirement rate for faculty is now much higher than a decade ago."

During the 10-year period from 1991 to 2001, average compensation (salary and benefits) by faculty rank has increased in all categories. For professors, average compensation rose from $84,800 to $121,300; for associate professors, the average compensation rose from $63,500 to $88,000; and for assistant professors, from $51,500 to $70,000. Average salaries for instructors increased from $38,400 to $56,800.

Over the decade, faculty have become much more successful in attracting external funding to support their work, Rich said. Sponsored research expenditures have "almost doubled," Rich told the senators, increasing from $35,280,233 to $65,369,440 over the past decade. He pointed out a dramatic increase in grants for instruction, from $11.1 million to $25.8 million, and another large increase in sponsored public service expenditures, from $5.3 million to $16 million.

"These combined external expenditures have risen from $52 million in 1991 to $108 million in 2001," Rich said. "The present amount is slightly larger than the annual allocation from the state of Delaware."

Faculty development has been continuous, Rich pointed out. A spring 2001 survey indicated that 53 percent of faculty use problem-based learning in their courses and 84 percent use other forms of active learning in their courses. Sixty-six percent of all faculty regularly supervise undergraduates in research, he said, and more than 60 faculty lead study abroad programs each year, allowing UD to rank among the top 10 institutions nationally in proportion of students studying abroad.

Another expression of faculty development has been the adoption of WebCT as a course management system, he said. Last year, 39 courses with about 2,500 students used WebCT. This year, 220 courses with 6,800 students use WebCT, and about 150 faculty have taken WebCT training, Rich said.