The University of Wyoming continues to maintain its faculty levels by welcoming over 136 new faculty hires for the 2023-2024 academic year, of which Provost Kevin Carman notes is necessary to maintaining student success.
“First and foremost, the fundamental objective is to make sure that we have the faculty that we need, that provide the classes that our students need to make progress toward their degree,” Camran said, noting that the university has an overwhelming number of degree programs despite its relatively small size.
In his weekly letter, on August 24, 2023, Provost Carman announced the successful training of over 60 new faculty members out of the total, over the last year, 136 new faculty members.
While this is relative to the number of hires from last year, about 158, the total of 71 new hires over the summer and into the fall alone is of note.
The growth of the faculty is met through a program called Central Position Management (CPM) whereby vacant positions throughout the university are “captured” but there is a reallocation process that determines which departments have the greatest need.
“It’s a process that was born out of necessity because of budget cuts, but now that our budget has stabilized. It’s really a process that isn’t doesn’t work very well for us because it creates uncertainty,” Provost Carman said.
Provost Carman went on to provide an example that although there may be a need in the Anthropology department, the Chemistry department may demonstrate a more critical position to maintain courses that are required for certain degree programs, or vice versa.
However, it is of note that extension programs and research positions – such as those paid for by grants – are in their own determination process.
“Now the details of how that works and has evolved over time,” Provost Carman said.
“This past year, we had established a committee that consisted of faculty from all over the university, administrators as well as representatives from faculty, senate from ASUW and had Deans submit proposals for positions that they would like to be filled and prioritize them.”
Though the Branding Iron has been requested not to announce the names of all the new hires until their confirmation at the Board of Trustees meeting in September, 20-22 2023, we will note that departments such as Visual Arts and Music have seen the most hires this year.
Provost Carman also noted, however, that the extent of these hires does not stop at the Laramie campus.
“We have Cooperative Extension faculty that work in the extension programs across the state through the College of Agriculture Life Sciences, Natural Resources, and there are clinical faculty like associate faculty in the School of Nursing.”
Additionally, the single largest category of hires are assistant professors, particularly those on tenure track.
Provost Carman also went on to highlight that the money to maintain these faculty positions should not instigate a tuition increase any higher than the one already annually proposed.
“We just discussed this with the Board of Trustees Budget Committee today, we are proposing a 4% across the board tuition increase from year to year. We’ve had 4% increases for the past several years. So it’s sort of the default number that we use. By comparison, the inflation rate this year is 6%,” Provost Carman said.
“And so even if we increased by 4%, we’re well below Colorado and or anybody around us in terms of state universities. So that doesn’t mean that we want to or should continue to increase tuition unnecessarily but the point is that our tuition is still quite favorable in terms of the national landscape.”
