Economy Affects Teaching Style at the University of Nevada, Reno
Posted by Ryan in Uncategorized on October 7, 2009
By Ryan Scott
Donald Reynolds School of Journalism
RENO, Nev.-In lieu of hiring more assistant faculty to teach lower-division class sections at the University of Nevada Reno, the university will use tenure professors to save money.
UNR was under pressure to come up with a goal to fight off the $33million in state funding cuts. “UNR made an effort to not cut seats from some class sections in order to save money” said Bruce Shively, the Associate Vice-President for Planning and Budget Analysis.
The University decided to make some math, English, and core humanities classes larger than than the year 2008 with breakout discussion sections taught by tenure, permanent associate and assistant professors, as opposed to individual sections taught by full-time teachers. In addition to this, math classes were one of the departments to be reduced.
“Last year we had five sections of math, now we have two section of math.” said the math department Chairman Erik Herzik, rubbing his temples in frustration. Erik Herzik had to fire three teacher assistants to balance the budget of the math department. That experience has made him bias towards the budget cuts and frustrated with little resources to pull from.
“We made sure every student had a seat, we did not want students missing courses” said Bruce Shively, the Associate Vice-President for Planning and Budget Analysis.
The University plans for the tenure professors to increase productivity in the lower-division classrooms. If that were to occur a possibility exists for the university to receive more funding for the following school year.