Goal 1: Faculty
An exemplary faculty dedicated to teaching, research, and scholarship
Arts & Sciences’ intellectual pursuits are centered in our faculty, in close collaboration with our students. Any plan we create focuses on them. Attracting the very best faculty is one of the most significant challenges we face in the competitive world of elite institutions of higher education. At the same time, a challenge and an opportunity resulting from Washington University’s reputation is that our faculty are increasingly attractive to other institutions. Besides recruitment, retention is critical to our success. We must respond to these challenges with superior levels of resources to support the academic mission of the University.
Increasing our faculty size in selected areas would allow us to create excellence in both undergraduate and graduate research and education, meet student expectations for smaller class sizes and a larger selection of courses, and provide closer collaboration between students and faculty. We would also remedy a competitive disadvantage because our faculty is currently smaller than virtually all the Universities with which we compete and would have an especially big impact in attracting graduate students. Growing the size of our faculty will allow departments to offer more research expertise, affecting faculty recruitment and departmental reputation, two major influences in external rankings. These new faculty would provide the new resources to compete with the very best departments in the country.
Core Initiative
Increase the size of the faculty to at least 425 (from current 375) to strengthen our teaching and to advance our research profile.
An exemplary faculty dedicated to teaching, research, and scholarship
Arts & Sciences’ intellectual pursuits are centered in our faculty, in close collaboration with our students. Any plan we create focuses on them. Attracting the very best faculty is one of the most significant challenges we face in the competitive world of elite institutions of higher education. At the same time, a challenge and an opportunity resulting from Washington University’s reputation is that our faculty are increasingly attractive to other institutions. Besides recruitment, retention is critical to our success. We must respond to these challenges with superior levels of resources to support the academic mission of the University.
Increasing our faculty size in selected areas would allow us to create excellence in both undergraduate and graduate research and education, meet student expectations for smaller class sizes and a larger selection of courses, and provide closer collaboration between students and faculty. We would also remedy a competitive disadvantage because our faculty is currently smaller than virtually all the Universities with which we compete and would have an especially big impact in attracting graduate students. Growing the size of our faculty will allow departments to offer more research expertise, affecting faculty recruitment and departmental reputation, two major influences in external rankings. These new faculty would provide the new resources to compete with the very best departments in the country.
Core Initiative
Increase the size of the faculty to at least 425 (from current 375) to strengthen our teaching and to advance our research profile.
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