A key point in AMS executive-elect Radcliffe-Wang-St. Clair’s campaign platform was their plan to diversify the academic realm by creating new departments such as Middle Eastern studies, aboriginal studies and African studies.
English professor Rosemary Jolly told the Journal she would love to have an African studies department but doesn’t have the time to devote to it. Jolly said many professors are overcommitted—the time needed to take on such a project isn’t there.
Vice-Principal (Academic) Patrick Deane cited lack of funding and space as the main hindrances to expanding departments.
The irony is evident—Principal Karen Hitchcock’s aspiration to “engage the world” will prove an insurmountable challenge if the University locks this much of the world out of the classroom.
Last year a student petition for Arabic-language courses collected 2,005 signatures: almost four times the 525 students who voted in favour of the Queen’s Centre fee. The demand from students is there but the University has failed to muster the funding to satisfy it. As an academic institution, Queen’s has to start making financial decisions that allow it to grow as such.
For more than a decade, the school has suffered from a scarcity of permanent faculty , and the temporary professors brought in don’t necessarily offer the specialized knowledge a full-time professor would. The lack of job security temporary faculty positions offer can also act as a deterrent when Queen’s is recruiting profs.
Science-related courses are usually targeted for funding because of their equipment imperatives and the global emphasis on these fields. But arts courses are equally in need of continual upgrades whether it’s in the form of new, diversified courses or hiring enough professors to at least avoid cutting courses.
Hitchcock should begin in the classroom. Offering a few token regional-based courses in each department is hardly representative of the world; if academic offerings are limited by faculty, then it’s clear what needs to be done.
It’s a shame professors are so strapped for time and resources that worthy interdisciplinary projects are put on the back-burner. Shrinking faculty numbers shouldn’t be an excuse but rather an opportunity for the school to start construction on its teaching roster.
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