A recent front-page story in the California Aggie ("Graduate students angry over treatment of UC Davis lecturers") raised issues of likely concern to Dateline's readers. So I offer here a fuller context for those issues and a correction of some misinformation.

The Aggie article began with the statement that "85 graduate students in the English department signed a letter to HARCS Dean Elizabeth Langland demanding she reconsider her treatment of three English lecturers." I have subsequently learned that many of the graduate students whose names were "signed" to that letter never saw a copy of it before it was sent and are rightly disturbed that their names were affixed without their permission.

That problem aside, I appreciate this opportunity to provide missing information and to correct the record.

It is true that the HARCS academic plan focuses on hiring more senate faculty, who offer students the complete integration of teaching with research. That is what distinguishes campuses of the UC system, and that's why students choose to attend California's top-tier research universities. We present the cutting-edge pedagogy that prepares our students for success in the most challenging careers. This investment in ladder faculty is critical. At present, Senate faculty in English and Comparative Literature at UC Davis constitute only 4 percent of the total ladder faculty on campus. At Berkeley, UCLA, UCSB, UCSD, Irvine, and Santa Cruz, the percentages range from 8 percent to 18 percent of the total.

The article suggested that HARCS will no longer offer any three-year contracts to lecturers. This is not correct. HARCS has no blanket policy on three-year contracts for lecturers, who are a vital part of our teaching mission and will remain so.

Currently, Unit 18 lecturers at UC Davis teach 29 percent of the courses. In the English Department, on which the article focused, the contribution of faculty and lecturers to instruction is generally proportional to their share of total appointments. In 2000-01, senate faculty represented 31 percent of the instructional workforce and taught 32 percent of the enrollments and 41 percent of the total courses. Lecturers, who constituted 43 percent of the workforce, taught 44 percent of the enrollments and 38 percent of the courses. Graduate student instructors made up the remaining percentages.

Last year, I affirmed that we would provide three-year contracts for 24 long-term lecturers in English - which remains, incidentally, the largest such group in the UC system. This group will provide significant, continuing leadership in writing instruction on the campus. Any new three-year contracts will be determined through the academic processes now in place.

The academic plan for HARCS that now is being questioned has been in place for more than two years and was widely vetted on campus, by planning committees and administrative review bodies. They have found it to be a solid and desirable plan for the division. Last month, I attended a meeting of the English Department faculty, who forwarded the following resolution to me following our discussion: "It is the unanimous sense of the meeting that we wish to thank you for coming to meet with us, and to express to you our confidence in the leadership you are providing to the Division and the English Department."

The major objection I have heard to the academic plan is that undergraduate instruction might suffer. Based upon the record and the facts, there is no evidence for this conclusion. Student and peer evaluations within the Division give both senate faculty and lecturers uniformly high ratings for teaching. And that quality of teaching is also achieved by our graduate students and prospective postdoctoral fellows. Last year, for instance, 10 of 15 students awarded Outstanding Graduate Teaching Awards - a campus-wide competition - were from HARCS.

I remain committed to providing the very best educational opportunities for students at all stages of their education, in large part by ensuring their chances to study and interact with top-flight, nationally renowned faculty. But our lecturers will remain a vital part of our future. Together we will ensure that we fulfill our academic mission and lay a solid foundation for continued growth toward excellence.

Elizabeth Langland is dean of the Division of Humanities, Arts and Cultural Studies.