Post Classifieds
College hires more full-time faculty
By Brian Alexander
On October 17, 2012
Thanks to funds from the State University of New York's new rational tuition program, Buffalo State is
in the process of hiring more full-time faculty members.
The rational tuition program is a set of five-year tuition increases meant to raise available funds for
SUNY schools and prevent random, large tuition increases like those issued in the past.
Vice President of Finance and Management Mike LeVine said budgetary cutbacks due to the lagging
economy have caused the college to cut full-time positions in the past few years. He said SUNY's
rational tuition plan, however, has allowed the college to regain its steady financial footing.
President Aaron Podelefsky said the administration's goal is to get back up to around 430 total full-time
faculty. The last time the college filled this many full-time positions was 1997. In between, he said the
number has been as low as 376.
Provost Dennis Ponton said they plan to do this by hiring 30 new full-time faculty, with a minimum net
increase of ten faculty per year over the next three years. He said the college is hoping this effort will
raise the percentage of credit hours taught by full-time faculty to 75 percent. Full-time faculty currently
teach about 60 percent of all credit hours, with the rest being covered by adjunct faculty.
"Adjunct and part-time faculty are very valuable and we'll always have them at a certain level at
the institution," he said. "They're often working in the industry and they bring that expertise to the
classroom. But they don't typically do the advising, the research and scholarship that's important to the
life of a university."
Recently, in his third State of the College address, Podelefsky emphasized the importance of full-time
faculty to the college's future.
"I believe that a university's greatest asset is its people," Podelefsky said. "This initiative will enhance
the already outstanding educational quality provided by our current faculty and should enable us to
reduce our reliance on part-time faculty to a more appropriate balance."
The college began the semester with 403 full-time faculty. Since then, Ponton said that number has
risen to 416.
While the college has not identified which academic departments would see the most new hires,
Ponton said they will be looking at departments where enrollment demand is high and where there are
opportunities for new program initiatives. He said a few of the new hires have been in the criminal
justice and mathematics departments.
LeVine said the college typically budgets full-time faculty at around $65,000 a year. This would add up
to about $650,000 in funds allocated to hire new full time faculty each year for the next three years.
He said the college often hires under or over this number based on the discipline, but it gives them
some cushion when considering certain accessory costs.
"Some faculty will come and want labs and certain kinds of instrumentation so there's a set up budget
that we have to be able to account for," Levine said. "It's not just a new faculty member's salary that
we have to budget for, it's those additional costs that help us attract them and retain them and help
them be productive."
Brian Alexander can be reached by email at alexander.record@live.com.
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