(Sept. 14, 2001) — The Union College faculty and administration have spent the past two years developing a strategic plan for Union that will reinforce its mission as a liberal arts college with engineering. As a part of the plan, resources will be enriched in the liberal arts areas in which 85 percent of Union's students major, and resources will be reallocated in engineering, which enrolls 15 percent of the students.
A Union College faculty panel – the Resource Allocation Sub-Council (RASC) – appointed to review the proposed phasing out of the Civil Engineering Department, issued its report of alternative reallocations to the College's Academic Affairs Committee (AAC), Faculty Executive Committee (FEC), faculty departments, and President Roger Hull.
RASC members included Prof. Byron Nichols, Political Science Department; Prof. Chris Duncan, Visual Arts Department; Prof. Tom Jewell, Civil Engineering Department, Prof. David Hayes, Chemistry Department, Avrum Joffe '02, and Prof. Kimmo Rosenthal, Mathematics Department and associate dean of undergraduate education.
The proposal to phase out Civil Engineering is an effort to reallocate resources within the engineering division to focus on electrical, mechanical and computer systems engineering as well as computer science. RASC was formed, according to Faculty Executive Committee Chair Prof. Tom Werner, to “assure that the issue is addressed according to the faculty governance system.”
The report, according to Nichols, RASC chair, “presents a range of options to be considered as the College weighs this important decision.” The committee did not take a position on any one option, he said. “The report offers a framework for continued discussion of the proposal.”
Werner added that the report would be discussed at the Oct. 3 meeting of Union faculty. “A faculty vote will give the administration a sense of the group,” he said.
The Union board of trustees will have the issue of civil engineering on the agenda at its October 12 meeting.
In addition to analyzing the administration's proposal to phase out Civil Engineering, RASC identified five options to be considered. Each alternative, according to the group, has advantages and disadvantages, but all represent significant trade-offs in other areas of academic affairs.
The options include:
-
Phasing out the Civil Engineering program, as recommended by the administration
-
Reducing the size of faculty salary increases
-
Increasing the student body by seven students per year
-
Increasing the student body by four students per year and using any monies from the possible early retirement of faculty in engineering for Civil Engineering
-
Reallocate new faculty hires to engineering and draw on the early retirement savings
-
A combination of small cuts in different programs in the academic affairs area (i.e., reduce the size of the civil engineering faculty by one, reduce Terms Abroad, reduce support for undergraduate research and athletics, add a lab fee to engineering courses)
Or, in order to retain the department:
“One of Union's defining characteristics – perhaps its most defining characteristic – is the historic existence of engineering within a liberal arts framework. We will continue to define the College in this fashion, and I pledge to do all that I can to assure that goal,” said President Hull.
Under the Plan, the organizing theme of the engineering division is Converging Technologies. Engineering students will continue to receive degrees in mechanical, computer systems, and electrical engineering, and will also be introduced to such state-of-the-art concepts as bioengineering, nanotechnology, mechatronics, and pervasive computing. The division has already developed new classes – some offered this fall – that support this theme, including “Introduction To Nanotechnology,” “Digital Systems & Interface Electronics,” and “Fundamentals of Wireless Electronics.”