Mason: University of Iowa needs more faculty members

IOWA CITY - The University of Iowa needs more faculty members, President Sally Mason told the institution's Faculty Senate Tuesday.

'It will be essential if we are going to grow as a university,” Mason said. 'And I hope it's a priority for the new president.”

Mason, who became the 20th UI president in 2007. recently announced plans to retire this summer. On Tuesday she reiterated her goals for the next six months, which include fundraising, growing enrollment, and improving efficiency on campus.

As part of enrollment growth, Mason addressed some of the challenges that come with the goal of adding 500 students a year - including the need for more faculty, housing, and classroom space.

'Our housing system is undersized and probably always has been,” Mason said. 'We probably never have had all the housing our students would want to occupy.”

Administrators are working on those issues, in part, by adding new residence halls on both the west and east sides of campus. Those efforts, along with other leasing initiatives and facility efficiencies, have the campus positioned to grow, Mason said.

'I don't anticipate that housing students is going to be a limiting factor in growth going forward,” she said.

But, Mason said, the university does need to expand its tenure-track faculty. In the short term, the campus 'might need to plug some holes with lecturers,” but that is no long-term solution, she said.

The push for growth comes as the Board of Regents pushes for changes in how it distributes state appropriations to Iowa's public universities. The board has proposed a new enrollment- and performance-based funding model that ties a majority of the state dollars to resident enrollment.

Under the new model, UI could lose millions to ISU and UNI, who have larger portions of in-state students. The board has challenged UI to grow its in-state enrollment, and Mason has said the campus will rise to that challenge.

On Tuesday, Mason told the faculty, that growth involves better communication and recruitment of prospective students, and the university has ramped up those efforts since summer. Applications from resident, non-resident, and international prospects are up 10 percent over the same period last year.

'So it should be an interesting and exciting time,” Mason said.

In the context of enrollment growth, Mason also mentioned recent news that AIB College of Business in Des Moines wants to gift its 20-acre campus to UI. Under the university's management, the AIB campus would become a Regents Regional Center that would offer programs from UI, Iowa State University, and University of Northern Iowa.

Mason said she expects any students taking UI courses there would be counted as UI students.

When asked how the university will financially support accommodations for growth, including the need for more faculty members, Mason said, additional tuition revenue and savings from a systemwide efficiency review should suffice.