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CSUs to hire more tenure track faculty

With bottleneck courses dragging down graduation rates, the California State University Chancellor encouraged the CSU system to hire roughly 700 faculty members to help improve student achievement and graduation rates, according to CSU spokesman Erik Fallis.

“The chancellor gave an address back in January, and one of the major initiatives was to hire tenure track faculty members,” Fallis said. “So the campus identifies where they need to bolster and what the turn over is.”

Bottleneck courses — classes where students don’t perform well and either fail or withdraw from class, ultimately dragging down graduation rates — are a reason for an increase in faculty hires. At last year’s CSU Board of Trustees meeting on September 24, the issue of bottleneck courses was addressed.

As a result, in the 2013-14 budget proposal, $125 million was allocated specifically for the CSU system with $10 million directed toward online learning. At the BOT meeting, Brown said he thought technology would help in classrooms.

Fallis said that hiring more tenure track faculty is another part of continuing to help students in the CSU system while reducing the budget and helping enrollment grow.

With about 700 faculty members aimed for hire, each university will hire faculty based on programs. For example, Fallis said Cal State Fresno may focus on agriculture and hire faculty within that field.

Cal State Dominguez Hills has roughly 25 new faculty members coming to campus this fall, and plans to bring in about 32 more in the next year, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Cal Poly San Luis Obispo hired roughly 70 faculty members and plans to hire an additional 30, according to the LA Times.

Cal State Long Beach has about 60 new professors within the accounting and nursing programs, Interim Provost David Dowell said to the LA Times.

Currently, there are CSUs that have already hired faculty, however, Fallis said that because the CSUs are in charge of hiring, there would not be a set number until it is officially measured.

Fallis said the 700-faculty number is based on a snapshot when they inquired about the CSU system.

“We won’t know which campuses have done majority of the hiring until much later,” Fallis said. “We totaled them up informally — not every single position will be filled because we won’t find the candidate for the appropriate position.

One Comment

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    Anonymous

    Pretty sad we lowered graduation standards/requirements within the past few years in order to get kids to graduate on time. Requiring fewer science labs for GE, for one.

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