Both the Department of Education and the Office of Speech are suffering from a lack of financial and academic resources, according to the chairs of both departments.
The maintenance of both departments has become increasingly difficult due to the insufficient finances provided to them from the College.
"We are absolutely struggling, and the Dean of the Faculty's office is unable to do anything about it for lack of funds," Chair of the Office of Speech J. A. Kuypers said. The Department of Education is currently facing a similar predicament.
"Certainly we are a department that is struggling with resources," Department of Education Chair Andrew Garrod said.
According to Kuypers and Garrod, the most pressing issue facing these departments is their lack of professors. Neither the Education department nor the Speech office have more than one tenured professor, a fact that often prevents them from offering enough courses to meet student demand.
"We have to turn away almost as many students as we teach each year," Kuypers said, citing the fact that his classes often solicit long waiting lists. "We cannot do what we are supposed to do."
Indeed, Kuypers feels that in order to remedy the situation a new speech professor needs to be hired immediately.
However, Dean of the Faculty Edward Berger told The Dartmouth that while the College is always looking to augment the resources available to its departments, it is not possible to please everyone.
"It's not money that can be created out of thin air," Berger said.
He added that unless resources are reallocated, the College cannot simply create new positions; if a new professor is to be hired, a professor from another department must leave and not be replaced.
Kuypers, however, pointed out that single-professor departments will dissolve if their only professor leaves.
Garrod, too, perceives a need to hire new professors in his department.
Three of the four Education professors are visitors from other universities, and Garrod feels that this lack of tenured professors precludes scholarship.
In light of Dartmouth's drop in rankings in the August issue of U.S. News and World Report, it has become a goal of President of the College James Wright's goal to give this type of research a higher priority.
The future is most uncertain for the department of Education, which is up for review by external committee early next month. The last review in 1996 recommended the removal of the department, but was overturned by student protest.
Although the department of Education is popular with the student body, Berger explained that, when allocating resources, the deanery attempts to devise a plan which will not only meet students' needs but will be consistent with advances in the fields, and with more resources being appropriated to academic "hot areas."
"We try to figure what Dartmouth will look like in 10 years and build towards that," Berger said.
He did emphasize, however, that just because certain departments receive less funding than others does not mean that they are insignificant to the College.
"We wouldn't have a program or office if it was not important to the academic mission of Dartmouth," Berger said.
