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Differences in department funding raise questions |
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Thursday, 10 April 2008 |
 | Aeschleman
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by JILLIAN SWORDS
News Reporter
Cross-sections of students on campus have seen the various signs of discrepancies in funding amongst the colleges.
Senior advertising major Leiana M. Henson is case study one: the scrambling senior compensating for three unneeded classes she took freshman year that her advisor assured her really were required.
“It messed me up to where I can’t graduate until [next] December,” Henson said.
Since
then, “I’ve still met with an adviser but they didn’t tell me anything
I already didn’t know. I double-checked their info for them and pretty
much did their job for them.”
Raley College of Business is the only college on campus to use a professional advising center instead
of teachers doubling as part-time advisers.
Henson, like other students in the same situation, wonders if her situation would be different had she
had the assistance of such services.
However, Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs Stanley R. Aeschleman said
funding is allocated equitably to every department.
The College of Business has such an advising center because its dean deemed it as a worthwhile
expense.
“Understanding how much a department has to spend is complex,” Aeschleman said. “It involves a
combination of state appropriations, tuition and fees and private donations.”
Any seeming discrepancies among departments are simply due to the market, he said.
Aeschleman said all departments have advising centers, “they just don’t do as much hands-on
advising.”
Director of the College of Business Advising Center Kathy H. Smith said the complexities and constant
changes of the business curriculum caused the college to stop using professors as advisers four years
ago.
Smith said so far, the center has been worth the money; feedback from students using the center has
been positive and include that the center provides much more accessible help than part-time advisers
can.
Students are not the only ones affected by departmental funding.
According to the Appalachian State University Factbook, the average annual salary for full-time
professors here in fall 2007 in the English, communications and music departments hovered in the
mid-$70,000 range.
For a full-time professor in the finance, banking and insurance department, however, this number leapt
to $117,830.
“We just started a nursing program and there’s a shortage of nursing educators,” Aeschleman said.
“So, we have to pay [nursing professors] more than we do English professors if we want to attract
high-quality professionals in each discipline…Who makes more—physicians or schoolteachers? You
can argue that each is very valuable to society, but if you tell a surgeon you can only pay him $40,000
a year he’ll seek employment elsewhere.”
In addition, “We’re not competing with the private sector,” Aeschleman said. “We compete with other
universities. We know what other universities pay their faculty in their disciplines.”
Gayle M. Weitz is a full-time art professor who has taught at the university for 16 years, working her
way up from an instructor’s position.
Faculty in the art department receive, on average, some of the smallest salaries on campus. The
average salary for an assistant professor in art, for example, was $53,256 for 2007. Accounting
assistant professors received over twice as much, an average of $107,689.
“No, it’s not fair, but what in life is fair?” Weitz said. “We’re a capitalistic society and business is big
money. Look at what CEOs get versus janitors. The business school is the CEOs. Art is on the bottom
of the barrel to begin with anyway. Everyone considers themselves to be an artist.”
Aeschleman said the Office of Academic Affairs and the deans of each college make decisions
regarding the allocation of state funds received by the university.
Each department is different in terms of operating budget and market demand for professors.
For the 2008-09 academic year, a $363 Educational and Technology fee was the sum of student
contributions to the pool from which Academic Affairs draws.
Private donations also make up a sizeable chunk of each department’s spending money. These funds
go toward anything from departmental scholarships to piano maintenance, Aeschleman said.
Assistant Vice Chancellor and Chief Financial Officer for Alumni Affairs Laura B. Crandall said for the
2008 fiscal year, the Reich College of Education received the least private funding at $764,542.
The Hayes School of Music, following the death of its namesake Mariam Cannon Hayes, received the
most at $7,541,221.
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