{"id":95959,"date":"2014-08-26T10:07:31","date_gmt":"2014-08-26T14:07:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=95959"},"modified":"2015-12-09T11:04:46","modified_gmt":"2015-12-09T16:04:46","slug":"faculty-hiring-plan-helps-decrease-class-size","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2014\/08\/faculty-hiring-plan-helps-decrease-class-size\/","title":{"rendered":"Faculty Hiring Plan Helps Decrease Class Size"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Ariel<\/a>
Ariel Lambe, assistant professor of history, listens to a presentation during the new faculty orientation held at the Rowe Center on Aug. 20-21. (Peter Morenus\/UConn Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The University of Connecticut\u2019s faculty hiring initiative has drawn hundreds of highly talented educators to UConn in recent years, helping decrease its student-faculty ratio and accelerate its research.<\/p>\n

The University has hired 288 tenured or tenure-track faculty since the faculty recruitment initiative began in 2011, and about 75 new faculty members are joining UConn this semester.<\/p>\n

UConn Provost Mun Choi told the Board of Trustees at its meeting earlier this month that the University\u2019s student-faculty ratio is now about 15.9 students per 1 faculty member. That\u2019s down from 18:1 in 2011, when trustees approved the hiring plan.<\/p>\n

About 4,000 people applied for this year\u2019s positions offered under the hiring plan, which is designed to solidify UConn\u2019s academic core, strengthen research and teaching in key fields, and reduce class sizes.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are attracting the cream of the crop when it comes to faculty who will be conducting innovative research and educating our students. That\u2019s at the heart of the University\u2019s core mission, and we\u2019re very proud of these talented new researchers and scholars\u201d Choi said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe goal of going down to 15:1 is well within our reach,\u201d Choi told the trustees.<\/p>\n

\"Dan<\/a>
Dan Mercier, director of the Institute for Teaching and Learning, speaks to new faculty about measuring teaching effectiveness. (Peter Morenus\/UConn Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The four-year hiring initiative has been described as one of the most ambitious plans of its type in U.S. higher education \u2013 especially in such tight economic times.<\/p>\n

UConn has targeted several academic areas for growth, including human rights law and policy; genomics and associated disciplines; environment and sustainability; education policy research; insurance risk and health policy; digital media; and several others.<\/p>\n

UConn has recruited professors from several of the nation\u2019s top institutions, including some who gave up tenure at their previous universities because they wanted to be part of UConn\u2019s momentum.<\/p>\n

The University held orientation sessions Aug. 20-21 for the new faculty members, to introduce them to UConn\u2019s teaching, service, and research missions, policies and procedures, the campus and surrounding community, and each other.<\/p>\n

Some of the institutions from which they come to UConn include Harvard, MIT, University of North Carolina, Yale, Penn State, Johns Hopkins, Brown, Princeton, Northwestern, Maryland, and many other top-tier public and private institutions.<\/p>\n

\"Zhongyang<\/a>
Zhongyang Li, assistant professor of mathematics, listens to a presentation during the new faculty orientation. (Peter Morenus\/UConn Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Many of the incoming faculty members earned their Ph.D. credentials at Ivy League schools and other top-tier public and private universities. Their expertise runs the gamut from additive manufacturing to school reform policy, public health, global climate change, family policy, marine sciences, neuroscience, and a host of other specialties.<\/p>\n

The new faculty members hired under the recruitment plan come in addition to others being hired as part of the regular process of filling vacancies due to resignations, retirements, and other departures. In all, UConn has hired 477 professors at all ranks since 2011.<\/p>\n

Professors already on UConn\u2019s faculty also are posting high achievements in research and other areas, with research grant awards up 7 percent last year, despite the tight competition for federal funding. UConn faculty members also published 70 books in the past year and scores of scholarly articles in academic publications, Choi said.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur faculty members are experts who write books that are actually used in classrooms across the nation,\u201d he added, \u201cand we\u2019re very proud of their achievements.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Sally<\/a>
Sally Reis, vice provost for academic affairs, second from right, speaks with Barret Katuna, left, Cesar Abadia, Luz Londo\u00f1o Diaz, and Wendy Vanden Berg-Foels during the new faculty orientation. (Peter Morenus\/UConn Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The University’s hiring initiative has drawn thousands of applicants and resulted in the hiring of nearly 300 new faculty since 2011.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":65,"featured_media":95930,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2226,1914,1857,2234],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[124],"class_list":["post-95959","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-clas","category-sfa","category-law","category-university-life"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-13 02:17:25","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95959","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/65"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=95959"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95959\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":96005,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95959\/revisions\/96005"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/95930"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95959"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95959"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95959"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=95959"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=95959"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}