By
La Monica Everett-Haynes
Arizona Daily Wildcat
Despite the respected department's lack of funding, students still confident they can receive quality education
When Mohammed Khan learned that the University of Arizona's Management and Information Systems department ranked among the nation's best he left his native land in Pakistan for the Tucson desert.
Now, Khan said he is concerned that the department will not be able to match its reputation of having high-quality teaching.
Despite such recognition, the department may have to cut the number of students allowed to enter advanced standing because it lacks funding. The department has also lost professors because of the shortfall.
While it would be a hardship to many in the department, decreasing the number of students allowed in the advanced position would be a benefit to Roberto Sanchez, a business freshman.
"The professors wouldn't have time if there are a lot of students and just one teacher," Sanchez said. "I already get a lot of questions that are not answered."
Sanchez, who intends to enter a career involving international relations, said student-teacher interaction can help him to understand business interaction later in his professional career.
The U.S. News and World Report ranked the MIS department fifth this year in the nation using more than 270 votes from business school deans and Masters and Business Administration directors at colleges and universities accredited by the American Assembly of Collegiate Schools of Business.
The top universities are the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Carnegie Mellon University, the University of Minnesota and the University of Texas at Austin.
"Although not all students will be able to get into the program it will be better because the class sizes will be smaller, and there will be a better focus (on education)," said Alison Allred, president of Eller Business and Public Administration Student Council.
The "supply and demand problem," with more students trying to get into the MIS program and few seats to accommodate them, will work itself out, Allred said.
Out-of-state students attending the UA specifically for its MIS department have not come here in vain because those students usually work extra hard to earn the advance standing, she said.
With an application process the department will be able to create more room for those who not only have the grade point average but also the determination, Allred said.
The department intends to allow fewer students into its program which is enough to make a student want to reconsider attending the UA, Khan said.
"I pay heaps of money, and I come here with the intention of having the professors there because they rank fifth," Khan said.
Mark Zupan, College of Business and Public Administration dean, said a tuition hike would help fill the gap where faculty pay is faltering.
But some students are not willing to take another tuition hike.
Fang Chen transferred from Utah State University because she, like Khan, caught wind of the MIS department's ranking.
She said she feels reassured because the UA already receives more money than USU, and full-time positions for the department's professors were cemented before its current concerns, even though the department's funding is considered inadequate.
"That's the reason they're on top," Chen said. "The university can't grow up, get better and stay good if they don't have the best."
While students are less likely to accept a tuition increase they also want well-versed professors in any given discipline, she said.
Such professors also add to the overall reputation of the university, said Chad Bodine, a finance senior. Without them students may chose to attend other universities even if the cutback does not affect their specific major, he said.
"(If professors continue to leave) it would be a step back for the whole of the university," Bodine said. "Other people may start asking, 'Am I next?'"
But not all students believe the prosperity of the MIS department or a possible lapse in popularity for the department or the university rests solely on high quality professors.
"Student progress depends on students, not the professors," said Mikhail Averbukh, business sophomore. "The department will still be the best if they rely on any old, ordinary Ph.D. professor - not just the famous ones."
Averbukh said if the department did not try to remain among the highest of ranks it would be able to get rid of some of its administrative problems, like its shortage of professors.
The MIS department had about 900 students and 14 full time faculty members in the spring.
Some say the ratio is a problem but Alfons Kurnia, a finance and accounting senior, said he got only a glimpse of what his friends complain about.
"When the department gets overcrowded my friends say they don't have very good instruction," Kurnia said. The department is "putting someone that is not specialized in that field to fill the shortage," he said.
Kurnia said that while such professors are qualified to teach the courses where they are temporarily placed, they are not specialists in those fields.
But Kurnia said there are benefits, too.
Although the students may not be receiving optimum education they are learning on a broader base, he said.
"The lecture is based on the text, so if the professor knows what he's doing they can give the students insight into the course," Kurnia said.
