Faculty hiring initiative launched

Campus leaders are launching a plan to hire 100 to 150 professors over the next four years.

The Sesquicentennial Hires program is part of Chancellor David Ward’s budget initiative. Ward’s proposal to match $57 million in state tax dollars and tuition with private money as part of the next two state budgets was included in the UW System budget request in August.

To kick off the new plan, the university will hire 25 new professors who will start work next fall. The timetable is necessarily a tight one, with proposals due at the Provost’s Office by Monday, Dec. 14.

“This hiring program demonstrates our commitment to the chancellor’s budget initiative,” says Provost John Wiley. “Over the last few years, budget constraints have made it impossible for us to replace all faculty who retired or left for other reasons. As a consequence, we now have some 200 fewer faculty than we had five years ago. It is highly unlikely that we will be able to replace all losses, but some rebuilding is clearly needed. This is so important for our competitiveness, and so time-sensitive, that we are starting with gift funds even before knowing the outcome of the biennial budget process.”

Academic departments are encouraged to submit applications for two to five faculty in new and emerging interdepartmental fields, similar to the strategic hiring initiative last spring that added 20 faculty members. Departments also can apply for two to five faculty to address specific program needs or to maintain their national reputations.

“We want to tap the creativity of the campus in identifying areas that are likely to be vital for our future. In a rapidly changing environment, the ability of institutions to adapt to changing circumstances is often the crucial difference between those that succeed and those that fail,” Wiley says.

“It is, therefore, very important that some of our scarce positions be available for staffing newly emerging areas that would not likely be the highest priorities of any one department, but that are among the high priorities for several departments. At the same time, some individual departments may be poised to achieve dramatic results with the addition of just a few positions. Proposals making that case are also encouraged.”

The Sesquicentennial Hires will be in addition to the estimated 400 professors the university will hire in the next four years due to normal turnover.

Wiley says that groups that do not feel they can do a credible job on this schedule should keep in mind that additional rounds of hiring are planned for at least the next three years