Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, March 22, 1991                   TAG: 9103220966
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B5   EDITION: EVENING 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: CHARLOTTESVILLE                                LENGTH: Medium

UVA TO CUT 10% OF ITS COURSES, ENLARGE CLASSES

"We're not going to offer any new courses next year, and we'll only offer the courses required for students' degrees. We've eliminated all our electives," engineering school Dean Edgar Starke said. Starke spoke Thursday at a meeting of the school's governing board, the Board of Visitors.

"From what I've seen this year, the university can't afford to cut any course offerings," senior rhetoric major Andrew Pace said. "Every class I've seen has had more students than they're supposed to have already. This is the worst it's been since I got here."

Students will also face more crowded classrooms next fall, administrators said. In the engineering school, for example, an average of 49 students were in each class this semester. Next year, the average will be 53, Starke said.

"We have the same number of faculty we had seven years ago but 250 more students," Starke said.

The engineering school is holding 10 percent of its faculty positions vacant because of a university-wide hiring freeze. The state slashed the university's planned $113.1 million planned 1990-1992 appropriation by $55 million.

Vice President for Finance Leonard Sandridge outlined procedures Thursday for laying off general and tenured faculty, should the need arise.

About 40 of the 570 full-time faculty positions in the College of Arts and Sciences are vacant, Dean Joseph Miller said. The dean said those vacancies have prevented the college from assigning instructors for 30 percent of the 2,335 courses it scheduled for fall 1991.

"We don't know precisely where we stand yet," he said. "It's too early to tell what things will look like for next fall."

Commerce school students also face a 10 percent reduction in faculty, Dean William Shenkir said. "Our faculty are teaching more students and doing more advising. But we're not able to offer any new or experimental courses next fall because we don't have enough people to teach them. We'll make it for now, but these cuts will have some long-term effects," he said.

Architecture school Dean Harry Porter agreed. "We don't have anyone to teach a computer-aided design course now, and that puts our graduates at a disadvantage when they're seeking jobs," he said. "We're just sitting here hurting, hoping things will improve."