Student-to-Teacher Ratio Concerns Administration

Provost Robert Shelton, in a presentation on tuition increases made during Thursday's Board of Trustees meeting, proposed using a tuition increase to lower the ratio.

In the College of Arts and Sciences, there are more than 21 students to every one faculty member.

Chancellor James Moeser recently has advocated campus-initiated tuition increases, prompting officials to form a committee that likely will evaluate an increase proposal in January.

Shelton said Monday that he would like to see the ratio lowered to 15 students for every faculty member. But he said reaching this goal would be a gradual process over the course of several years.

"There is no magic number with this ratio," Shelton said. "It's a matter of the direction you're going, and right now we're going the wrong way."

Shelton said a high student-to-faculty ratio is a pressing concern because it increases class sizes and reduces the number of course offerings. He said the high ratio could have an impact on selection of majors and could prevent students from graduating in four years.

Dee Reid, communications director for Arts and Sciences, said the student-to-faculty ratio has lowered from 21.5 to 21.3 students for every one faculty member in the past year. Reid attributed this improvement to $11.1 million in enrollment increase funds appropriated by the N.C. General Assembly to hire more teachers and faculty members.

"Those funds are there to help you teach the additional students that you're expected to teach," Reid said. "If you get more students, you can hire more teachers and the ratio shouldn't go up."

But Shelton said cuts that the General Assembly made in late September have prevented those enrollment funds from significantly impacting the student-to-faculty ratio. "If we did not sustain the permanent cut, those funds would have been sufficient," Shelton said. "But this year we're not going to make much improvement. We might even lose ground."

Faculty Council Chairwoman Sue Estroff said additional financial resources like private donations and tuition increases should be used to hire more faculty because both students and faculty would benefit strongly.

"The quality of (a student's) educational experience and our teaching experience are very closely related," Estroff said. "There's nothing more rewarding than being in close contact with students and being able to interact with them."

Shelton said the effect that a low student-to-faculty ratio would have on class size is dependent on the subject material of the course. He said some departments keep large classes to expand their upper-level course offerings.

"As a student, I never worried about sitting in an introductory physics class of 75 people," Shelton said. "But I really would have resented an introductory French class with 75 people."

Shelton said the benefits of a lower ratio make good use of funds that might come from increased tuition.

"We have to keep student concerns in mind when we think about raising tuition," he said. "If they do come to us with a recommendation for a tuition increase, we better have a clear way of demonstrating that students will benefit from it."

The University Editor can be reached at udesk@unc.edu.