The Daily Toreador - Student Newspaper of Texas Tech

Issue date: 4/23/08 Section: News

Media Credit: Ken Muir

Texas Tech officially recognized its faculty Tuesday afternoon at the 2008 Faculty Honors Convocation in room 169 of the Human Sciences Building.

In his opening remarks, Tech's Chancellor Kent Hance told faculty members they were the "lifeblood" of the university. Despite misconceptions arising from a March report delivered to Tech's Board of Regents addressing cost effectiveness, the chancellor said he has no desire to reduce faculty research and in fact, intends to increase it along with faculty salaries.

"One of the things that I wanted to talk about: There has been some discussion of whether we should be a teaching university or we should be a research university," Hance said. "Those are not exclusive. I feel that we should be both. That's a priority for me, that we do both."

He continued to say he wanted to encourage faculty members to actively recruit prospective students, because "if a young person gets a call from a professor, they are impressed. They are impressed." The university needs to seek the best students it can as it increases enrollment.

To assist the university in recruiting quality students, Tech's faculty should actively make telephone calls to top-notch, prospective students and encourage them to visit the university, Hance said.

"If we can fly football and basketball players here to recruit," he said, "we can fly in National Merit Scholars."

Also, Hance told faculty members to work closely with him and not to hesitate to contact his office if they needed anything.

"In closing, I would say that, look, there has been controversy, and some people have said, 'What's he doing?'" he said. "You know, 'Does he know what he's doing?' I know what I'm doing, with y'all's help. I do, but I need your input. I want to hear from you."

Also vital to Tech's efforts, Hance said, is student satisfaction. If students are unsatisfied with their university, they'll "vote with their feet" and leave.

"I think it was a great address," said Tech Provost William Marcy after the ceremony. "I think he touched on really important issues to the faculty. These faculty are the opinion leaders of the university, so making an address to these faculty really is informing the faculty who are going to be most influential at the university."

After Hance's speech, Jon Whitmore, Tech's president, offered his own words of encouragement to faculty members, commending them for all of their research and for the positive attention they bring to Tech.

Continued...

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