By Jenna Snider
Many departments at Bellarmine University face a shortage of professors, and students are dealing with the consequences.
From criminal justice to communication, and many departments in between, the shortage of professors has led to limited class times and sections, fewer electives and many discouraged students.
The criminal justice department has one full-time professor and one part-time professor who are teaching the four classes being offered this semester. Jolie Parker, a sophomore criminal justice major, said that is not enough.
“As a criminal justice major, I look forward to getting to take criminal justice courses,” Parker said. “This semester there were only two electives being offered, and neither of them fit in my schedule, so now I’ve gone my entire sophomore year without being able to take a single criminal justice class, which has been a little discouraging and disheartening.”
Not being able to take criminal justice electives has also hindered Parker’s career path exploration.
“I still don’t really know what I wanna do with my major necessarily, so I’ve been struggling with my career path and taking classes within my major might help me figure that out,” Parker said. “I’m going a whole entire academic year without getting to take any criminal justice classes, so I’m feeling really lost career wise because I’m not even taking anything I’m super passionate about. It’s all just gen eds or things like that.”
A similar issue is taking place in the communication department.
“I’ve had issues with there only being one selection for classes, to where my adviser created a graduation plan that had each class I had to take every semester, and I’ve like thrown it out of order because classes didn’t fit with my work schedule, and they overlapped with other classes I needed to take,” junior communication and DAT major Molly Shannon said. “I’m a junior, and last semester I took 100-level classes.”
The limited availability of classes and professors is due in part to Bellarmine’s current hiring freeze.
“The university has a hiring freeze right now, so we are not hiring or replacing any positions that come open, but we do have a hiring freeze exemption process,” said Dr. Mark Wiegand, the interim vice president for academic affairs and provost.
For new professors to be hired during the freeze, the dean of the school with an open position must go through the exemption process. Wiegand said the final decision for hiring is made by the cabinet, whose members include university president Dr. Susan Donovan and all of the vice presidents.
“We have a discussion on it in terms of how it contributes strategically to the university moving forward, and in particular, how it has an impact on the finances of the university, and then a decision is made by cabinet whether the position is going to be filled or not,” Wiegand said.
“We really try to look strategically across the entire school. We are not taking positions from Bellarmine College and using them in education or health sciences, but really it’s just within each school that we’re trying to make these decisions,” he said.
If students are concerned about how the hiring freeze affects them or are struggling to find open classes, Wiegand said he suggests working with their academic advisers or the Student Success Center or meeting with him to share ideas and concerns.
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