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Populate a History Department

Cross-posted from Blog Them Out of the Stone Age

Let's say you have carte blanche to populate a history department located in, say, the U.S. midwest. For purposes of the exercise, the department has no preexisting faculty -- or, if you like, numerous faculty will retire over the next five years, and you are asked to develop a strategic plan showing what the department should look like in five years. Select the faculty positions you consider most important for the 8,000 undergraduate students who attend this liberal arts college. You have fifteen FTE (full-time equivalent) slots available and a salary/benefits budget of $1,290,000, with benefits computed at 36 percent of salary. (Thus, a faculty member receiving $50,000 in salary would also require $18,000 in benefits.) You can count on an annual pool of 1.5 percent (e.g., $19,350 for the first academic year), for merit increases.

Thus:

FY 5: 1,290,000 (Year 1 of the strategic plan)
FY 6: 1,309,350
FY 7: 1,422,225
FY 8: 1,493,336
FY 9: 1,568,003
What positions -- areas of specialization -- would you select, and why?