I had a very interesting discussion with one of my history professors yesterday about the direction we are headed in with regard to our academic programs. The basis of the discussion was a question I asked, “Why doesn’t UNC Charlotte have a doctoral/Ph D. granting program in our History Department?”
His answer was that the department had pushed for one back around the time of Dubois’ arrival, but due to funding issues it was shot down. My professor tends to be long winded, but he made some good points. It is his opinion that the University is venturing further and further away from its liberal arts basis and becoming what he calls “Charlotte Tech” due to the strength of our College of Computing and Informatics, the WS Lee College of Engineering, the creation and build up of CRI, etc.
With the 7% budget reversion, the History department is not going to hire 4 new faculty members that it had planned on. Everyone is having to make cuts, and thats how the History department is doing it. But this isnt the biggest problem that became clear to me.
We are losing history faculty and have been for some time. Faculty turnover happens. My professor said that he would understand someone leaving UNC Charlotte’s history department for, say, an Ivy League School, or a large, well funded, research intensive public school like Univ or Georgia, or Florida, or Tenn, or Virginia. This isnt the case though. We are losing faculty to[B] PEER INSTITUTIONS[/B] such as Temple, George Mason, and UCF. WHY? Because they have Ph D. programs and the funding is there for them to do research and work with the best of the best.
Our History Deparment’s M.A. Program is traditionally very strong; we have sent our M.A.'s to get their Ph D.'s at the likes of UNC-CH, Princeton, Brown, Yale, Duke, etc. But we don’t have a PhD. program of our own because, in my professor’s opinion, the emphasis is placed on science and technology, not the humanities and liberal arts. We have a pretty diverse crowd on this message board from an academic standpoint. I’d hope that at least every college is represented by a regular poster.
SO, my question is this.
[B]How do you feel about the academic direction of our University, both short term and long term?[/B] Do you feel that we are moving more towards a “Charlotte Tech” school or that my professor is way off? Is that necessarily a bad thing? Why or Why not? Do you feel that some or all of our programs are getting stronger, staying the same, or declining? Is our rapid growth helping us or hurting us?
Lets have a serious discussion about where we are headed. After all, we are here to get a degree first and foremost.