As student enrollment continues to increase at Iowa State with each passing year, so does the number of faculty members on campus.

As of Oct. 30, 2015, a total of 1,973 tenured, tenure-eligible and non-tenure eligible faculty members worked at Iowa State, according to the 2015-2016 handbook. This marks an increase of 81 faculty members since 2014.

“Generally, more faculty gives you a better faculty-student ratio,” said Jonathan Sturm, president-elect of Iowa State’s Faculty Senate and chairman of the Faculty Senate’s enrollment management committee. “This usually, but not always, translates into more contact time between faculty and students.”

Sturm said a primary concern when it comes to the university’s student-to-faculty ratio is whether the same standard of education — if not better education — is being delivered to students.

Maintaining or minimizing this ratio has been difficult, particularly with the steady increase in student enrollment. It was announced by the university in the fall 2015 that 36,001 undergraduate students were enrolled for classes.

However, the enrollment has decreased since the fall by more than 2,000 to 33,659 students enrolled. Despite this, this spring semester’s enrollment set a record from last year’s because of the increase of 865 students.

A continued increase in hired faculty could also affect anything from availability of office space to the work-life balance of each faculty member, Strum said. 

“I found that I have big classes as well as small classes and in both I feel like I’m learning enough,” said Kristen Lowe, sophomore in agriculture and society and public relations.

Lowe said the current faculty-to-student ratio of 19 students to every one faculty member is a good amount, but lower would be better.

During an interview with the Daily in January, President Steven Leath said the student-to-faculty ratio was something he’d like to improve.

“We’ve hired 365 faculty in the last three years, and one of my goals was to move the student-to-faculty ratio to 16-to-1 compared to 19-to-1,” Leath said. “If we shrunk some, it would be strange but would actually help drive that ratio in the right way.”

Leath said loss of faculty as a result of decreased student enrollment is something to be considered in the faculty budget — if that point is reached in the future.