Nine professors to be hired in 1999
by Sandra Spurlock

This year Virginia Wesleyan will lose six valuable professors as a result of an early retirement plan being offered for the first time in the history of the College. However, nine new positions will be filled by the requests of faculty members.

Dean of the College, Dr. Stephen Mansfield said, “This process was implemented a couple of years ago and approved by the faculty. This is the first time we’ve used it.”

Those professors electing the early retirement option are: Dr. Rick Hite, professor of theater and communications; Dr. Anderson Orr, professor of English; Mr. Neil Britton, professor of art; Dr. Victor Culver, professor of education; Dr. Patricia Sullivan, professor of modern languages; and Mrs. Dora Dobrin, professor of sociology.

Students have voiced many concerns over the number of vacancies and how they will be compensated for. The members of the faculty collectively petitioned for 14 new positions within the departments for the 1999-2000 academic year.

“We don’t automatically replace faculty who retire,” said Mansfield. “Faculty positions belong to the College rather than the divisions.”

The decision was made to hire nine professors in the disciplines of communications, art, zoology, education, French, health and human services, recreation and leisure studies, theater and computer science. Many of these teaching positions are allowing for great developments in the individual fields. The hiring of a new communications professor will enable students to take classes in broadcasting, and the addition of faculty to computer science will help increase the availability of classes to not only those students studying computer sciences, but also to students who wish to further their computer literacy.

There is a great sense of relief among the students that these positions will be filled, and a belief that the school will select only the best applicants to fill the openings.

The decision to hire in these specific fields reflect the greatest needs of the students and of the college community as a whole. The agreement of which positions were to be filled was the result of many meetings between the coordinators of the academic departments with the division chairs serving as a review committee, as well as meetings of the Administrative Council to determine how many positions the budget could reasonably support for the coming year.

Mansfield stated that each request posed to the Administrative Council was “strong and reasonable.” The decisions of which positions will be added to or replaced, according to Mansfield, address “the needs of the departments and of the college as a whole.”

The promising conclusion to hire on so many new faculty members is very exciting to all members of the Wesleyan community. However, it will be a bittersweet occasion.

Junior James Molloy expressed the feeling of many students, “Let’s just hope that the professors that are hired are half as good as the ones that are leaving."