By C. G. Lynch

This article is the first in a six-part series examining each college’s financial plans for the upcoming budget.

The College of Arts and Sciences hopes to receive enough money from the 2004-05 budget to boost its professional faculty by 9 to 10 professors a year over the next five years and to erase its $1.6 million deficit, said Dean James Stellar. Stellar said the college would benefit from new professors, better support for graduate students and staff and reversal of deficiencies in its daily operating budget. Over the next five years, he wants to hire 45 new professors to alleviate the understaffed programs. Due to a ballooning interest in certain departments, he cited communication studies, visual arts and music as priorities in the new budget, but reiterated that the staffing problem remains widespread. “We have seen large surges here,” Stellar said. “It’s been hard to keep up, but the problem is everywhere. Almost all departments have too few faculty.” P. David Marshall, the chairman of the communication studies program, said staffing issues cause difficulty in meeting the demand for growing student interest. “Our key thing is faculty and getting professors,” said Marshall. “We have relied on part time lecturers, which has helped us through this large growth. It’s probably one of the most trying needs of the university — to get faculty.” With 5516 undergraduate students and 839 graduate students, the College of Arts and Sciences is the largest school at Northeastern. Because of this, Marshall and other chairmen hope for promising figures in this year’s budget. Tom Starr, the chairman of the Visual Arts Department, recently examined some illuminating numbers from the 2003-04 academic year. His department, which harbors approximately 300 students, will have offered over 142 courses by the end of this year. Of those courses, only 25 will be taught by tenured professors or tenure track professors. Of those 142 courses, 80 will be taught by strictly part-time faculty. “We are seriously understaffed with professors,” said Starr, who, aside from running the department, also teaches graphic design — a concentration which 200 members of the visual arts department choose as their major. Of the professors that teach graphic design, only two are tenured and one is tenure track. In the meantime, the budget will undergo several steps before Stellar or any other dean will know their allotment. In order to pass, it must be recommended by the Committee on Funding Priorities, accepted by the University Budget Committee and endorsed by President Richard M. Freeland, who will present a projected form of it to Northeastern’s trustees and faculty. Until then the College of Arts and Sciences will be forced to cope with its current financial situation. “We are doing what we must to survive and stay as strong as we can while we wait,” Stellar said.