University of Texas Austin - Cactus Yearbook (Austin, TX)

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photo by Marines Hacker Academic Report 83

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. Table of Contents ADMINISTRATION AND FACULTY Chancellor 87 Deans 84 President 82 Professors 86-1 1 1 Regents 87 Vice Presidents 84 FEATURES High Enrollment 90 Out of State Students 95 Physics Circus 103 Study Abroad: Normandy ... .110 Tenure: Publish or Perish 98 UT Down Under . .106 CUNNINGHAM ADDRESSES UT Full of students, but low on classes On June 26 recreational sports and kinesiology personnel reported that even the addition of the new sports center under construction would not totally alleviate overcrowding in sports facilities. This was just the beginning of an onslaught of overcrowding at the Uni- versity. Capital Metro shuttle buses were jam-packed. Student Health Cent- er services were pushed beyond capac- ity. Enrollment was still going up. Classes were also filled to capacity, and a significant number of undergrad- uate students couldn ' t get into the class- es they needed. While not new, the problem of class availability seemed to escalate in fall 1989 and continue into spring. This problem was of great concern to Pres- ident William Cunningham, one which he addressed thoughout the academic year. But what exactly was the problem? Were there too many students? Too few faculty? Did the University simply not have the resources to provide for 50,000 students? The Students ' Association claimed class availability as their top priority in the 1989-90 year. Jerry Haddican, SA president, told The Daily Texan, The administration says there are too many students. Our position is not to reduce the number of students, it ' s to get enough classes for those who are here. But the president was already work- ing on it. In March 1988 Cunningham established the Ad Hoc Committee on Undergraduate Education, chaired by James T. Doluisio, dean of the College of Pharmacy. This committee studied four aspects of the situation: course schedule and capacity, transfer student policy, quality of UT instruction and enrollment policies. Proposals were then periodically submitted to the pres- ident in each of these areas. Although many of the committee ' s proposals were supported by students for example, the idea that prereq- uisites to courses be applied only for academic preparatory purposes, and 82 Academic Report not simply to keep enrollment down in the higher-level classes Haddican ex- pressed concern that the administration would not heed the advice. The president responded in Septem- ber by announcing the addition of 50 faculty members and approximately 30 sections of high-demand courses. Stu- dents were dismayed, however, to find that not all of the new faculty would be hired to teach the unavailable classes; furthermore, the money was to come from the 1990 summer session budget. These and other concerns led Cun- ningham to release in October a three- part series of articles addressing the is- sues at hand. He stated that the fun- damental problem is that the Univer- sity ' s student-teacher ratio of 22.27-to- 1 (fall 1988) is simply too high. While the additional 50 faculty low- ered the ratio 0.55 percent, 200 to 300 positions would have to be filled before the class-availability problems would be solved. Because of the obvious financial con- straints to hiring 250 professors, hiring was a long-term but definite goal. In the meantime, less extensive measures were taken to curtail enrollment. For example, admissions require- ments were raised, and a new UT Sys- tem procedure was implemented through which some students not au- tomatically admitted to UT Austin were admitted to UT Arlington, UT San Antonio or UT El Paso. Many other steps were taken by the administration in areas such as course times and provisional admission, and by pointing out these actions in his news release, Cunningham helped to clarify the entire issue of class availability. But class availability does not a year make, and other concurrent problems at UT were confronted more success- fully. The University has continued to make improvements on many fronts, including areas such as minority re- cruitment, improving the quality of teaching and strengthening our re- search programs, Cunningham said. Donita Robinson

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HAL BOX School of Architecture ROBERT E. BOYER College of Natural Sciences JAMES DOLUISIO College of Pharmacy THOMAS M. HATFIELD Division of Continuing Education DOLORES SANDS School of Nursing MAX SHERMAN LBJ School of Public Affairs JON WH1TMORE College of Fine Arts MARTHA WILLIAMS School of Social Work The Hidden Work of the Academic Deans photos courtesy of UT News and Information Service Whenever a student received an of- ficial letter or memo from his college, it often bore the name of the college ' s dean. To many students, however, the name represented someone they had never met, but who nevertheless had a great impact on their academic lives at the University. Students were well aware of Presi- dent William Cunningham and the Board of Regents, since they received most of the attention and publicity fo- cused on the UT administration. But what students were not aware of was the amount of problem-solving, manage- (-1 KHAKI) I ONKI Kxcttilive Vii i- President and Provost G. CIIAKI.KS KRANKI.IN Vice President for Business Affairs WILLIAM S. LIVINGSTON Vit - I ' trsiilriu and Dean of Graduate Sdidic 84 Academic Report