More students means more professors

By Mary Hoang

Daily Bruin Contributor

In the upcoming decade, approximately 7,000 new faculty members
need to be hired to accommodate the influx of students entering the
University of California system as the result of Tidal Wave II.

An additional 3,000 faculty members would supplement the current
faculty pool throughout the UC system, and 4,000 will be needed to
replace retirees, according to UC spokesman Brad Hayward.

“Systemwide, there is going to be a 60,000-student
increase,” Hayward said. “The hiring of new faculty is
occurring on an ongoing basis.”

He said the systemwide breakdown of the student enrollment is
expected to be 80 percent undergraduate and 20 percent
graduate.

Alongside the UC’s projected employment growth, state and
nationwide increases are also anticipated by state and federal
agencies.

The California Employment Development Office, a state agency
that projects labor change statistics for the future, estimates an
employment increase for all occupations at 23.6 percent
statewide.

But the increases for all post-secondary faculty exceeds the
entire work force average ““ with estimates as high as 66.7
percent for computer science teachers and 31.8 percent for
philosophy, religion and physical science.

There is also an expected increase of 35.7 percent for chemistry
teachers in the upcoming decade.

“In order to determine projections we were conservative.
The estimates may be larger than the expected in the end,”
said Karl Hedlind, projection unit manager at the California
Employment Development Office.

“All occurring projects are a reference to the industry,
staffing patterns and school age population.”

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there will be a
22.6 percent increase in university and college faculty on a
nationwide basis. The only other occupation to surpass university
and college faculty is special education teachers.

Hayward said faculty hiring has been steady in recent years. For
the 1997-1998 and 1998-1999 fiscal years, 362 tenure-track faculty
were hired throughout the UC system.

“We do know that these numbers will need to increase in
the coming years to allow UC to accommodate all the additional
students who will be heading our way,” he said.

The projected increase in the UC system’s student
population has led the university to pursue new strategies to meet
the enrollment demand.

The university plans to do this “with a focus on creative
solutions tailored to the needs of individual campuses and their
surrounding communities,” according to a UC Web site
dedicated to Tidal Wave II.

The first Tidal Wave occurred in the 1960s, with the baby boomer
generation. The UC opened three new campuses to absorb the
influx.

This increase in the number of incoming students is expected to
last longer than the original increase, according to the Web
site.

But only one new university ““ UC Merced, opening in 2005
““ is being built to accommodate the increase.

A variety of other possible solutions to contend with incoming
children of the baby boom generation include: increasing summer
session enrollment by expanding course offerings; enrolling more
students in off-campus locations; and cutting the average
graduation time from 13 quarters to 12.

“UC campus growth, along with needed renovation and
seismic projects, will require $500 million per year in capital
funding,” according the Tidal Wave II Web site. But the Web
site does not indicate the specific amount that will be allocated
for the hiring of new faculty.