At the first full Faculty meeting of the year on Tuesday afternoon, both Dean of the Faculty Jeremy R. Knowles and President Neil L. Rudenstine emphasized the importance of looking ahead to the future as the capital campaign draws to a close.

One of his major goals this year, Knowles said, is to increase the size of the Faculty. Adding new professorships would help reduce the size of classes and the overall student-faculty ratio.

"Looking ahead, I believe that the single most important need of the FAS for the coming decade is to increase the size of the faculty and to provide space for us all to work," he said.

Knowles pointed to the recent renovations of academic buildings, but he also said that to ensure office space for additional faculty long-term space planning is necessary.

While increasing Faculty size, Knowles said that there will be a special emphasis on building up the science departments.

Because many Faculty members in scientific fields are expected to retire in the next five years, more tenures will be offered to scientists, Knowles said. The University has already begun filling these positions, hiring unprecedented numbers of scholars in the physics and astronomy departments.

To help in the search for new Faculty members in the sciences, Knowles announced that he has formed a task force to investigate more ways of hiring women Faculty in these traditionally underrepresented areas.

The task force will, "ensure that our faculty searches, both for senior and junior colleagues, are as complete as they can be, and that stellar women candidates are being found and evaluated," Knowles said.