Dye Discusses Trustee Weekend

College and Conservatory Faculty met Tuesday to discuss developments from last weekend's Board of Trustees meeting. Throughout the academic year the Board and its representatives have been engaged in a discussion of how to address strategic needs of the College. This discussion included the high student-faculty ratio, financial aid, faculty salary and the possibility of greater College involvement in the surrounding Oberlin community.

President Nancy Dye addressed the difficulty that students face in accessing certain classes due to the poor student-faculty ratio, currently about 13.5-one. "This is higher than it should be," she said. Dye announced the addition of five new faculty positions come Fall '01, with the hope to eventually raise that number to 10. This in part comes from the Educational Plans and Policies Committee's recent action to install a seminar program for first-year students. Dye said that it would be "great and grand" if both the College and the Conservatory could benefit from the addition of faculty members, which would allow for what she called "the most vibrant and rich liberal arts experience."

Dye described this year's admitted class to be the best it's been in 30years, with over 4,000 applicants and 25 percent accepted early decision. Dye hopes next year's smaller incoming class combined with a large graduating class will bring the total number of students down to approximately 2,840, from its current 2,910.

Dye continued on the topic of financial aid and admissions, saying, "the College continues to deal with ways Oberlin is not as competitive as it should be in terms of offering financial aid to its students." She explained that the College does not base as much as it might on the total cost of admission, including board and funding for classes. Director of Financial Aid Brian Lindeman explained that the package for personal expenses will be raised from its current $1,100 to $1,600 beginning next Fall. Lindeman said, "this is the estimate for books and personal expenses during the school year." Additionally, Dye stated that there will be an increase of merit scholarship. This will help Oberlin become more prepared for what Dye described as a "ferociously competitive department."

Tuition will rise by 4.2 percent, an increment Dye called quite small comparable to other schools similar to Oberlin.

Dye later discussed the low amount of African-American students in this year's first-year class, something Admissions hopes to rectify. Last year marked an Oberlin record for the amount of applications received from African-Americans, but relatively few actually chose to attend. "We should have had more African-Americans than we did," Dye said. She hopes that scholarships will help attract more African-American students to Oberlin.

Regarding faculty salary, Dye described Oberlin as being near the bottom compared to peer institutions, saying, "Obviously this has been a problem." The greatest discrepancy in salary with other institutions is among full professors and the least among assistant and associate professors. Dye explained the logic in fixing the lower ranks first, an area easier to correct, by bringing the associate and assistant professors into a competitive range with the goal of ultimately improving all salaries. This process will include both College and Conservatory faculty.

Finally, Dye addressed the "health of the College" as it relates to the "health of the community." Dye said that there has been "increasing frailty of economic and social institutions in Oberlin." She mentioned failing businesses, the precarious position of the hospital and the state of academic emergency that the public school district is experiencing. Dye spoke enthusiastically about the ways in which the town and College hope to collaborate. A committee headed by Assistant to the President Daniel Gardner, started last spring and with support from the Board of Trustees, will begin its community initiative this July. A teacher education program will constitute one of the most significant factors of the initiative. Regarding local schools' response to this initiative, Gardner acknowledged that opinions would likely vary. "I would assume that the schools are every bit as complex as Oberlin College," he said.

While the general mood of the meeting was optimistic regarding these new developments, the meeting began and ended on a note of tension, as faculty voted to remove Senate member Chris Anton from the GF body. At the conclusion of the meeting Anton's fellow senators expressed strong concerns and objections to this decision, claiming that Dye and the GF body had overridden their laws in deciding who is a senator. Dye replied that for the purposes of the GF body, "a student senator is a student."