Meredith Jung-En Woo
The University of Virginia faces a talent crisis, says Meredith Jung-En Woo, dean of the College of Arts & Sciences. The college expects to lose about 100 faculty members through retirement in the near future and 40 for other reasons. To meet expanding enrollment, the college needs to hire another 60, plus 30 more to improve student-faculty ratios. That compares to 540 faculty who are tenured or on tenure track.
The solution? Pursue a $130 million fund-raising campaign for “faculty excellence.” The goal, Wood told a gathering of Richmond-area alumni yesterday at the Westin Hotel, is to add $100 million to the endowment and devote $30 million for near-term expenditure.
As an example of UVa’s march to excellence, Woo cited the recent recruitment of Alan Taylor, who won the Pulitzer Prize for his work, “William Cooper’s Town: Power and Persuasion on the Frontier of the Early American Republic.” He turned down Harvard to join UVa, said Woo. One reason was that his archives are located in Virginia. But another is the reputation of UVa’s history department for having one of the top programs in early American history. Taylor’s presence, she said, “will make us peerless.”
Woo cited other initiatives such as renewing the writer-in-residence program, which lapsed after William Faulkner’s stay at the university. The goal is to bring on board a Nobel Prize-caliber writer. The College also plans to create an artist-in-residence program and recruit a world-class China scholar.
The diminutive, Korean-born dean found a receptive audience among the Wahoo alumni, an overwhelmingly middle-aged and elderly crowd. Judging by my conservations with fellow Hoos during the cocktail reception and the questions asked after the presentations, Richmond alumni seem very comfortable with the priorities set by the university administration, led by President Teresa Sullivan. They are eager to see UVa build its reputation as a world-class university. Nary a word was spoken about unaffordable tuition hikes or existential threats posed by online learning.
— JAB
