[Plsfaculty] Note three important items below

[Kenneth Feldmann]

Three items below so please read all three

 

Kenneth A. Feldmann

Department Head and Professor

Department of Plant Sciences

The University of Arizona

P.O. Box 210036

Tucson, Arizona 85721

Telephone: 520.621.1945

Fax: 520.6217186

Email: feldmann at cals.arizona.edu

 

Visit our Department website at www.cals.arizona.edu/pls

  _____  

1. 

 

From: Eugene Sander [mailto:egsander at Ag.arizona.edu] 
Sent: Thursday, February 05, 2009 8:58 AM

CALS Faculty,
 
I sense a growing uneasiness on the part of our junior faculty about their
futures at the University of Arizona.  While there is no sugarcoating a $142
million reduction in the budgets of the three state universities, I can
assure you that the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences has no plans to
eliminate tenure-eligible or continuing-eligible faculty.
 
If one examines the University Handbook for Appointed Personnel (UHAP), you
will find procedures for closing budgeted units, the result of which after
extensive vetting could, under very specialized circumstances, result in the
non-reappointment of all faculty, including those with tenure or continuing
status.  Further reading of these regulations will show that this cannot be
accomplished immediately, it takes a full year, and the university is
obligated to try to find positions for such impacted faculty in other
university units.  While I share this with all of you in an attempt to be
totally transparent, I believe that the release of either
tenured/tenure-eligible, continuing/continuing-eligible faculty to be a
remote possibility.  Finally, our CALS Staff Council is hosting an open
forum on Wednesday, February 11 from 12:00 to 1:00 p.m. in Social Sciences
206 where Im willing to take and answer all questions for which I know the
answer.
 
Gene Sander

 

 

2.  We are working through the budget numbers that we received from the Dean
and I will be talking to all affected faculty in the next week about what we
need to do to balance the budget.

 

3.  We interviewed 9 candidates for admission to the MS or PhD programs in
the Department. Four of these students were found to be acceptable by
everyone who has filled out an evaluation form or who has talked with me.
Four of these students are "on the fence" meaning that most of the faculty
who responded felt that they were admissible but where 1 or 2 faculty felt
that they were inadmissible. One student was found to be inadmissible by
most of the responding faculty. I want to get letters sent out no later than
very early next week. If you have an interest in any one of these students,
please send me an email or give me a call. Please let me know if you are
going to have money to cover them after 1 year (MS students) or two years
(PhD students). 

- For the PhD students, I am going to offer them $19,992 per year plus
$2,000 for summer compensation, from the Department, with another $2,000
paid by the major advisor. I am going to guarantee this for the first two
years so you must have financial support to cover that $2,000 per year if
you accept one of these students. I am also going to write them a letter
that guarantees support for their degree program as long as they are making
acceptable progress toward the degree. Some of this support will come from
TAships, faculty grants and fellowships. I really hope that we can work
together to graduate students in 5 years so that we can continue to offer
this kind of financial support.

- Same for the MS students except that it is approximately $2,000 less per
year and only one year from the Department.

 

We have yet to interview 2-3 students but it is my goal to recruit 6
students this year. Even with these difficult economic times, this year I
would rather overshoot it than undershoot, as long as there are enough good
applicants and there is interest from the faculty to educate and train these
students.

 

 

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