U. of Nevada, Reno aims to add 400 faculty by 2020

RENO — A plan from the president of The University of Nevada, Reno calls for 400 more faculty members at the school by 2020.

President Marc Johnson said his goal is to have 18 students for each faculty member.

Johnson told The Reno Gazette-Journal that the school’s growing student enrollment would help pay for 300 of the new positions. The school saw record enrollment this year with nearly 21,000 students.

He hopes state lawmakers will fund the remaining 100 positions. Johnson said the school and the Nevada System of Higher Education will meet in March to discuss how they’ll request the funding from lawmakers in 2017.

By adding 400 new faculty positions, UNR will be closer to achieving the highest research ranking from the Carnegie Foundation, which rates college research programs.

Johnson said having more faculty members will free up professors to devote more of their time to research and would put the school on par with other research programs at the University of Utah, New Mexico State and Washington state.

Those three schools are all rated at the top research level by the Carnegie Foundation.

“(We can be) an education program with lots of hands-on learning, lots of interaction between students and faculty as well as a much more vibrant research and scholarship program on campus,” Johnson said.

He said 300 of the 400 planned faculty positions would be tenure-track jobs