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RFH 2010, Cover Stories, Colgate News

Colgate Adds Faculty Positions

Fri, Jun 10, 2011

As other universities are cutting faculty positions, Colgate is adding them; broadening academic offerings.

Colgate plans to add five more teaching positions next year and also convert six visiting-faculty positions to tenure stream. Combined with eight new faculty positions added during 2010-2011, this increase of 19 potentially permanent positions represents a 7.8 percent growth in teaching power at Colgate, and comes as many institutions are making cuts in their teaching programs.

Colgate employs 275 full-ptime faculty.

"Colgate is fortunate to be able to make investments that increase the tenured faculty," said President Jeffrey Herbst, who joined the university a year ago. "This ambitious academic expansion is even more exciting as this is an excellent time to be searching for great new faculty colleagues. We therefore have the opportunity to explore new fields and reinvigorate existing offerings with some of the most exciting scholars in the nation."

Herbst has focused on Colgate's scholarly activity and potential. Last year he sought proposals for positions that would take advantage of intellectual opportunities and address areas where Colgate has relatively high concentrations of students.

During 2011-2012 new searches will be held for assistant professors o:

  • English (African-American literature),
  • geography (ecohydrology with regional focus on Asia and Africa),
  • history (South Asian), philosophy (non-Western),
  • and writing and rhetoric (communication studies and public address).

"All of these positions will expand the Colgate curriculum in important ways," said Provost Lyle Roelofs. "The English and philosophy hirings bring new contributions to curricular diversity; the history and philosophy searches add international depth; writing and rhetoric contributes directly to one of the major strengths of a liberal arts education; and the geography position expands scholarship in an increasingly important part of the field, and also connects to the physical sciences, particularly geology and physics."

Next year Colgate also will conduct six to eight searches to replace faculty who are retiring or leaving the university. Position descriptions will be posted in the fall.

More faculty does not mean more styudents. Sokesperson Barbara Brooks said the incremental positions keep class size low while broadening Colgate's academic offerings.

Source: Colgate

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