In response to shortfalls and cuts from most state departments and institutions, President John Bardo issued a freeze on non-critical spending which has halted most hiring throughout the university.

Wichita State responded with a freeze on spending by all departments. Departments with fewer faculty members could be the most affected.

Depending on the semester, the marketing department is either the second of third largest student in student population.

Stephen Porter, marketing department chair, said the small faculty size can make it difficult to offer the necessary classes for a student to complete a major.

The faculty is managing, but is becoming more difficult, he said.

Some sacrifices are necessary, such as the convenience of scheduling classes in multiple hours – like morning, night or online – because of the lack of staff.

Porter said the department is meeting the students’ needs aided by creative scheduling, but that may become more difficult with fewer faculty available.

An example of the possible hurdles the department will face is the retirement of associate marketing professor Dean Headley.

Headley’s classes will be offered only one semester a school year instead of both before he leaves. As Porter explained, Headley’s is a highly specialized class, which means it cannot be offered by a temporary adjunct hire from within the community.

This will make it difficult to offer those classes in the future considering the age of the existing faculty. In five years, due to retirements, there might be only two members of the current faculty left.

Porter said the remaining faculty has the capacity to take on different and lower level courses. This adaptability, he explained is a big strength of the department as it will allow them to carry on with no lingering issues after Robert Ross and Esther Headley – wife of Dean Headley – also retire.

Porter said there have been attempts to request the hiring of new faculty, but these have been met with no definitive answer.

Usually the hiring process takes about a year, starting with identifying ideal candidates wherever the yearly market is, following through with interviews in the current fall season which means a starting date no sooner than the following fall. Taking into consideration the retirement of a faculty member by the fall of 2018, this process would need to start no later than this year to marginally fit within the traditional timeline.

With one exception the department has not been allowed a significant new hire in more than 25 years.

Retaining faculty is not a big issue right now, despite the competition from programs in states like Oklahoma or Colorado offering higher salaries to young professionals.

“We’ve given quite a bit back to Topeka over the last two or three years and it’s getting to the point that the only thing we can give back to Topeka now are people, our positions,” Porter said. “That is what makes it difficult trying to grow enrollment, trying to grow programs, we’re trying to be aggressive, but they are not letting us be able to hire people because we just don’t have the fund for it; and this is the difficulty Tony Vizzini, Provost, and Bardo are facing, how do we allocate resources to be able to continue to grow programs so that we can meet the needs of students.”