quote:

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Originally posted by: LVN
"Does anyone know how the response is going?  I know of one hire, for two sections.  "

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I can tell you this: as of today the hattiesburg campus, perhaps for the first time in over two decades has no junior faculty at all. We have lost in the past six months, five faculty. All now are tenured, none are assistant. I can also tell you that the hattiesburg campus has not been allowed to hire a single tenure track person in over five years. We have lost at least ten (far more really) and this year the hattiesburg campus was allowed to hire just ONE tenure track assistant professor who will be arriving in a few weeks.

What's the standard teaching load in English?

found out the other day that an adjunct teacher cannot teach more than two classes, or else they would have to offer benefits.

One further point about English department losses in THIS YEAR alone.  As I have said, in the past six months alone five faculty left. What I did not say was that they were part of what made this such a distinguished department and the proof of that fact is the following:

One went to a very competetive state school, George Mason: more highly ranked than usm.

One went to Texas A&M: no need for me to explain the quality of that institution.

One went to a distinguished professorship in Florida.

One became an associate dean!

The other retired in protest, well before he had expected to retire and just after winning in this very year a prestigious national, literary award.

In short, we did not lose just any old faculty members. We lost no less than FIVE serious quality faculty whose current positions elsewhere are proof of what USM once had. And to reiterate, they have not been replaced.

Further, one might consider just how many have left in the past fours years when NO hiring on the hattiesburg campus was tolerated. Aside from the five full time faculty I mention above I can say for sure that in those years we lost close to an additional ten, but it may well be more, it may be close to fifteen, others can correct me if the number is slightly askew. For those full time faculty who left the hattiesburg campus of the English department between 1999-2003 one might well ask: where are they? They are, for the most part, like the ones who left just in the past six months at far more presigious institutions, often as administrators. This is more than a scandal to one department it is a scandal for higher education in this state. The only cliche that comes to mind is cutting off one's nose to spite one's face.

 

quote:

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Originally posted by: Angeline
"http://hattiesburgamerican.com/news/stories/20040727/southernmissnews/926814.html"

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The following statement from today's HA is, no doubt correct:

"The English department lost two professors and an associate professor at the end of the spring semester, but most of their work was with upper level and graduate students, Ball said."

I have a comment. While Sociology does not have a doctoral program, it's undergraduate program took a major hit when it lost Frank Glamser. Numerous undergraduate students over the years have told me that Professor Glamser was the very best teacher they ever had, in any discipline, at USM or at any other school. He taught hoards of Introductory students; and he was the only person qualified, by virtue of his training and experience, to teach a couple of his upper-division undergraduate courses. Glamser's loss will be very expensive, not only with regard to replacing him, but also with regard to attracting students. It is as if the USM administration has it's head in a sack and does not know what really goes on in the trenches.

 

Does English REALLY need all these adjuncts?  If you read the text about student enrollment, the spin (presumably another white lie by LSM) says there is a seven percent increase in the number of freshmen ACCEPTED, a far cry from actually being ENROLLED.  So, does English need instructors because of higher demand, as our illustrious administrators shrewdly imply, or are instructors being hired because the gutted department is too low on faculty to support an "average" or more likely a "below average" freshmen class?