Since the beginning of the decade, the College of the Holy Cross has made major bricks-and-mortar investments on campus: a new residence hall, parking garage, soccer stadium, renovation of St. Joseph Chapel, and the current construction of a state-of-the-art science complex.
There have been equally dramatic changes inside the College’s academic buildings, labs, and offices: at least 75 new tenure-track professors from the best graduate programs in the country have joined the College community since 2001.
“As a group, these new professors have definitely changed the College,” says Bill Morse, special assistant to the dean, who is responsible for orientation of new faculty members. “They have brought with them new pedagogies, openness to interdisciplinary work, and an excitement of experimentation in doing new things. They’re very active scholars, and that’s had a ripple effect on all faculty. They’ve really thrown themselves into the mission of Holy Cross.”
The increase in faculty members has led to a reduction of the student to faculty ratio from around 14 to 1 immediately preceding the new hires to its current level of less than 11 to 1. The growing number of faculty made possible a move to a 3-2 teaching load, in which faculty members teach three classes one semester and two the next. This has allowed faculty members more time to pursue research and faculty-student interaction outside of the classroom, while maintaining the College’s high standards for scholarship and campus citizenship.
Holy Cross sets high standards when recruiting new faculty members. “The most important thing is that applicants must have a lot of potential to be great teachers,” says Timothy Austin, vice president for academic affairs and dean of the College.
That’s a critically important attribute, he says, because classroom teaching at Holy Cross, where there are no teaching assistants, is central to a student’s experience.
“Faculty must also be able to work with students on independent research. This has been a trend in higher education over the last ten years or so, although Holy Cross has always valued strong faculty-student interaction. They also must have the excitement about scholarship that would allow them to go on to develop as researchers and scholars in their fields,” Austin says.
Over the last several years, the College has also enjoyed modest success in strengthening the diversity among faculty. Since the 2001-02 academic year, 16 multicultural hires have been made. Austin hopes to see more diversity among applicants in the coming years.
“I don’t think there is an institution in this country that is completely happy with the representativeness of its faculty,” he says. “There just isn’t the pool of minority Ph.D.’s to supply every elite institution with as many professors as we’d like to hire. The competition for the best graduates is fierce.”
As part of the recruitment process, Holy Cross sends prospective applicants the Holy Cross Mission Statement.
“We hire partly for ‘mission readiness’,” says Austin. “Our mission statement must be something that they’re intrigued by.”
Holy Cross looks for new faculty members who are “jugglers” of three loves: love of teaching, love of research, love of service.
Morse says that message has definitely appealed to candidates during the recruitment process.
“We find we can bring in faculty who want to be in a community and want to contribute to that community,” he says. “On the whole, when we start making offers, we usually get the candidates we want.”
Related Information:
- Holy Cross Announces New Tenure-Track Faculty Hires
- Read short profiles of several outstanding faculty members
