Editor’s note: University President Michael Adams addressed the media at a briefing Thursday. Here are some updates to the University’s agenda:

Students with the HOPE Scholarship will continue to receive their $300 book allowance, thanks to legislation passed Thursday by the Georgia House of Representatives.

Prior to the legislation, which passed 159-0, students’ book allowance would be in jeopardy if lottery revenue fell short of paying for HOPE, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported. But the newly passed House bill will require lottery revenues to fall 8 percent before the state will cut book allowances.

“I hope in this climate the book support for students would not be the first thing to go away,” University President Michael Adams said in a media briefing Thursday morning.

Though Adams said he did not think the HOPE book allowance situation was critical yet, he did say any increases in funds the University can receive will be welcome.

“I have been forthright about saying that I would take the increase any way we could get it given the circumstances – either through tuition or fees,” he said.

University jobs

Adams said the University is looking at mid to late April before he knows definitively whether the University will resort to cutting personnel in 2010.

“It remains our No. 1 priority to protect jobs,” he said.

The allocation of the 2010 budget will depend on “a lot of moving parts,” Adams said, including where the Georgia Legislature stands on finalizing cuts, tuition and fee increases set by the Board of Regents, as well as what the University’s indirect cost recovery will be.

“We do hope to have all of those things done by the end of this semester,” he said.

Enrollment and course loads

But not all of the news is bad, Adams said, noting the largest spring enrollment the University has ever seen – up more than 600 students total and bringing in 200 freshmen for the first time.

“There is an increased demand at the University of Georgia, period,” he said.

Adams said he does not expect more than about 5,000 freshmen to be admitted in the fall, which is the normal amount admitted each year. But he said a problem the University is faced with is that students are staying for extra semesters because they are taking too few courses.

“Students are taking too few hours and building into the plan an extra semester or two,” he said. “Some of that is class availability and some of that is voluntary on their part, particularly because of the economic climate that’s out there, because I’ve had students tell me that.”

HOPE and other federal funding for minimum course load requirements to qualify as a full-time student are set by the state – at 12 credit hours – but Adams said he has thought about raising that requirement.

“If we had a 14 or 15 hour minimum, it would probably make this a better place academically,” he said, noting it would decrease the time it takes many students to graduate. But, he said, the decision of minimum requirements is out of his hands.

Part-time faculty

The University is at its highest percentage of in-state students it has had since World War II, Adams said, and with more students from both in and out of state, there is a need for faculty to teach high demand courses.

“During the fall, through the use of part-time faculty, there were only about 30 sections [of classes] we were not able to offer, across the board,” said Arnett Mace, vice president for Student Affairs and provost.

Adams said it is too early to say that the University will need more part-time faculty, but the University cannot make long-term commitments to potential faculty with money that is not there.

“While I strongly prefer full-time, tenure-track [faculty], let’s not jump to the conclusion that part-time means less than good,” he said.

“We are still ahead of most of the country in how many of our classes, particularly of the graduate classes, we’re teaching with the full-time faculty.”