Neglected
No faculty added to art education

Twenty-five: The number of additional faculty positions requested by seven TCU colleges and schools.

Fourteen: The number of positions granted.

Eighteen: The number of years the art education department has been waiting for the approval of just one faculty position.

University officials released the list of positions it would add to the university with the help of $1.5 million set aside by the Board of Trustees in January to hire new faculty and instructional support staff this week, but nowhere on the list was the art education department.

Provost William Koehler said more positions could not be granted due to a lack in funding.

A lack of funding is something those of us in the TCU community are beginning to understand in these uncertain times. In fact, the university should be applauded for finding funding for the 14 positions it did approve, more than 50 percent of its requests.
But still, 18 years is too long for any one program to wait for a faculty position.

The art education major is a strong program, one in which its part-time professors say their art education majors are excelling in. Yet the students, those who chose to come to TCU because of our award winning faculty and low student to faculty ratios, aren’t getting the attention they deserve. Part-time professors aren’t getting the time they deserve with their students either.

TCU markets the university as a liberal arts college, yet the English, history, and religion departments, just a few of those programs that fuel that liberal arts education, are missing from the current faculty additions.

We understand that the need for professors is being answered in those programs that are growing the most rapidly, but maybe it’s time to slow down or reevaluate the university’s goals before the liberal arts education becomes a distant memory.

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TCU Daily Skiff © 2002