UCI Hiring Up to 60 New Faculty Members

To keep pace with its booming enrollment growth, UC Irvine this year is hiring up to 60 new faculty members, Chancellor Jack W. Peltason said Thursday.

In a talk to the UCI Academic Senate, Peltason said a minimum of 48 of the new faculty will be hired by the opening of the fall semester in September.

“This is the single biggest addition to our faculty since the year we first opened,” Peltason said. He said the large batch of new faculty reflects increasing student enrollment at the Irvine campus--a trend that is expected to continue despite efforts by UCI to put the brakes on freshman enrollment next year.

Year to Recruit

“It takes a year or longer to recruit the type of faculty we are looking for,” Peltason noted. He added that the 60 faculty members being hired this year reflect the growth of the past year. Even more faculty will have to be hired as the university continues to grow, he said. Peltason did not give a breakdown of which departments will receive the new faculty members. The campus currently has about 750 tenured, full-time faculty members.

The Academic Senate, during its meeting, heard a lengthy report on freshman admission practices at UCI next year.

Admissions Director James E. Dunning said UCI is forecasting 2,400 new freshmen this fall, compared to 2,900 last fall. The lower number will be because UCI is clamping down on freshman admissions while trying to encourage more transfer students who come into the less-crowded sophomore, junior and senior classes.

New System

Dunning noted that UCI, like all the campuses of the University of California system, is involved in the second year of a “multiple filing” system by which prospective students can, with one application, express preference for several UC campuses. The new multiple filing, Dunning added, has made it harder to forecast exactly how many students will actually come to a particular UC campus. Last year, UCI guessed too low, he said.

In a matter related to enrollment, Said Elghobashi, a mechanical engineering professor and member of the Academic Senate, urged the UCI administration to provide details annually of why certain students are admitted under a discretionary policy that allows entrance to 2% of new students who may not meet all regular UC admittance requirements.

The category is used to admit some athletes, artists, musicians and other “special talents,” according to UC rules.

Elghobashi said the category has the potential for being abused. “For instance a man could call and say I want to give UCI $120 million to build a building, and then you take my niece, who’s applied for admission,” said Elghobashi.

Another member of the Academic Senate, in jest, responded: “Hey, that sounds like a good idea.”

At the end of the discussion, Peltason told the Academic Senate that he sees no problem in accounting for UCI admission of the discretionary 2% each year “as long as we don’t violate the privacy laws.” Peltason said the information will be given to the Academic Senate without disclosing specific names.

Presidential Library

Peltason briefly discussed the action last week by the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation in seeking information about private land near UCI owned by the Irvine Co. The foundation is searching for a Southern California site for Reagan’s presidential library. Peltason said he knew no more “than what’s appeared in the newspapers” but pledged to keep the faculty apprised of any information he may receive.