Office of the Chancellor

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Faculty Hiring Update

November 5, 2008

To: UMass Amherst Faculty

Today, I want to share with the campus our plans to fill critical faculty positions right away as well as our longer-range plan to partner with the faculty to grow its ranks in both number and quality as a central part of our initiative to become one of our nation’s best public research universities.

While current budgetary difficulties will hamper us, we must remain committed to meeting our mission and providing a top-quality education, while remaining focused on our ultimate goals. To that end, the Provost and I have approved plans to continue 49 faculty searches this fiscal year, thus filling critical needs across the campus.

Also, I want to reaffirm my commitment going forward to the goals of the Amherst 250 initiative, and to our aim of increasing the size of the tenured and tenure-track faculty. A strong faculty is critical to our overall institutional success, and even in difficult budget times we must focus our energies on building a better university by supporting our faculty. We will create an open, transparent system to use faculty excellence and expertise to add new positions in areas of real strategic, academic and scholarly strength. Today, I will outline this process.

First, as we all know from reports on the state, national and regional economy, the current budget downturn compels us to think more seriously and differently about how to increase the size of the faculty. It is heartening to know that in the past two years we have completed allocations of a significant number of positions that address critical shortages in the area of instruction. As a result, many of our most pressing needs have been addressed.

At the same time, it is obvious that in light of more than $11 million in mid-year state budget cuts, we do not have the funding to add 50 new faculty members this year, and that the funding for these positions will very likely not be in next year’s budget either. In fact, as we have discussed, additional cuts to our state funding seem likely.

This budget downturn gives us the opportunity, however, to develop a long-range strategy that will align the assignment of faculty positions with campus priorities – and focus our energies not only on getting bigger, but getting better at the same time. When we emerge from the current economic crisis, our institution must be poised to move forward aggressively and energetically with this strategic direction.  Working together as a campus community, we can prepare ourselves for that opportunity.

Specifically, we will ask our faculty members, colleges and departments to work together to develop projects or proposals for additional faculty positions. These proposals -- envisioned as requesting multiple positions across disciplines in most cases -- will be reviewed by the Office of the Provost and by a group of faculty and administrators.

These faculty-driven proposals will, in turn, allow the campus to better align our facilities and infrastructure plans with the hiring process. Also, we will look to significantly increase our fundraising and communications support for these areas of excellence at the university – and to build on the already strong faculty here to create an even better faculty going forward. We will need to use all our resources to achieve this, and this plan will help us to do that.

The criteria for adding these faculty positions will include the following considerations:

1. Proven excellence of the Amherst campus in the given research/teaching area
2. Interdisciplinary/transdisciplinary nature of the project
3. Willingness of departments/schools/colleges to support this direction with their own resources.
4. Established leadership for initiative on campus
5. Ability to attract funding from federal, state and private sources
6. Prospects that the project will establish or confirm UMass Amherst as the leader in the proposed area of scholarship, research or teaching

In the coming weeks, I will ask the Office of the Provost to send information on this process to the faculty and academic units, and to finalize the process so we can be transparent and more strategic in how we approach the critical task of adding to our faculty.

While these are clearly difficult budget times, which require us to adjust our planning processes, it is more important than ever that we keep our focus on building a great institution. Together, I am confident we will overcome this difficult period, and I fully believe our best days are ahead.

Robert C. Holub, Chancellor