Southern Polytechnic State University - Organization and Administration

Organization and Administration

Faculty at Southern Polytechnic State University are at a ratio of about 1 faculty member per 19 students. About 42.5% of students attend classes with less than 20 students. The small class size promotes a greater attention to the students and lets the faculty become more involved in each students education. The faculty also centers their attention to provide a laboratory and/or professionally oriented education that caters to problem solving, ethical awareness, and a desire for lifelong learning. Every faculty member has to have experience in relevant work or research of a topic to be qualified to teach at the school. Because the faculty is more involved, most freshmen, 75.5 percent, attend the school for a second year.

Since 2006, there has been a general 70% to 30% ratio of men to women professors. In 2007–2008 male professors made up to 7,000 dollars more than female professors on average. The gap between the difference in pay quickly decreased and by the 2009–2010 academic year the salary only differed by 300 dollars, $77,699 for males and $77,410 for females. Of the 48 full-time professors in 2007, 52% of them had tenure. The amount of professors dropped from 48 to 44 in 2008, and with the drop of full-time professors, there were only 44% of full-time faculty that had tenure. It was also recorded in 2010, that the amount of full-time professors dropped again to 39, but the tenure rate still remained the same.

There are many awards given out at Southern Polytechnic State University among the faculty including the Outstanding Faculty Award and the Employee Service Award. Throughout the course of a faculty member's time working at Southern Polytechnic State University they have the chance to receive an Outstanding Faculty Award (OFA). The university chooses a select group of faculty whose achievements have been noteworthy enough to receive the OFA. The OFA committee changes each year and is made up of the previous year's recipients of the Outstanding Faculty Award. The Employee Service Award acknowledges the service and achievement of its permanent employees at periodic intervals with appropriate ceremony and awards. A committee composed of representatives from the Staff Council and the Outstanding Faculty Awards Committee determine who receive the awards and the ceremony date. Both awards are given out at the same ceremony, and it takes place at the end of spring term.