Focus
A Career in Academia or Industry? A recent spate of negative tenure decisions has chemists discussing some of the trade-offs The trickle of analytical chemists changing careers in midstream seems to have increased lately. And the flow has been primarily in one direction— from academia to industry and government. Many of these recent career changes stem from an unusually high number of negative tenure decisions for assistant professors of analytical chemistry. According to Henry Blount, program director for chemical analysis at the National Science Foundation, there were about 10 negative tenure decisions for analytical chemists in U.S. colleges and universities last year. Because a majority of these negative tenure decisions involved people who entered academic careers without the usual one or two years of postdoctoral research, observers are pointing to this lack of experience as an important causative factor in many of the tenure denials. In recent years, it has become common for analytical chemistry PhDs to leave graduate school and take up academic posts immediately, but it is still very uncommon for PhDs in other fields of chemistry to accept academic posts without several years of postdoctoral work. "It is not that people without postdoctoral experience know less about their specialties," explains Blount, "but they lack the maturation normally gained in the postdoctoral experience—what I call street smarts. They know the technical material, but they don't necessarily know how to write a grant proposal, how to write a paper, or how to respond in a variety of situations." Gary Hieftje, professor of analytical chemistry at Indiana University, agrees with Blount that young assistant professors without postdoctoral experience are at a substantial disadvantage. "It might seem like an advantage," says Hieftje, "because you get to start on your career earlier. But you won't have time to sit back and decide what you're going to write your first
few grant proposals on, and that slower start can mean the death knell when a tenure decision comes along." Some say that department chairmen frequently expect the "wrong things" from the analytical chemists they hire and eventually become disappointed with them. "I think, in part, it's the old snobbery of pure chemistry vs. applied chemistry," says Michael Parsons of Los Alamos National Laboratory. "The organic and physical chemists who run most of the chemistry departments in this country think that the analytical chemists are doing applied research, and they don't think that's pure research. They seem to feel that analytical [chemistry] is not a viable area. But that is not borne out by the job market or by the vigorous interest of the students." Parsons himself recently switched to Los Alamos from academia, though a negative tenure decision was not involved here; Parsons had been at Arizona State University for 17 years and left with the title of full professor. According to an analytical chemist who declined to be identified, generous funding levels for analytical chemistry research in the past few years and the attraction of graduate students into the field in large numbers have tended to engender something akin to jealousy on the part of nonanalytical-chemistry professors. "I
526 A · ANALYTICAL CHEMISTRY, VOL. 57, NO. 4, APRIL 1985
think that other people in chemistry are now less likely to go easy on analytical chemists," he said. "What that means is that people who go into academia directly from graduate school are placed at a major disadvantage." Unfortunately, low postdoctoral salaries tend to deter graduating PhD chemists from seeking postdoctoral appointments and, hence, from seeking academic careers in general. "I think we should pay our postdocs a decent wage," says NSF's Henry Blount. "It is an absolute affront to pay a postdoc $13,000 a year. If that's the group from which our universities are drawing their faculty, then they're going to get the cream of that group, which isn't going to be very strong, with a few exceptions—people who really have a Calvinistic bent. "Unless a person receiving his degree is committed to an academic pursuit," he continues, "or there is a specific person he wants to work with, or there is a new area he wants to learn at that time, he will likely take the industrial job offer rather than the postdoctoral position, the reasons being primarily financial reward and longterm security." According to Blount, the difference in salary between a postdoctoral position and a starting job in industry is "a factor of two minimum, and in some cases a factor of three." Not only for postdoctoral work, but for full-time academic appointments as well, salary seems to have become an increasingly negative factor. According to Blount, a new hire at one of the top three or four U.S. institutions in chemistry can expect to earn about $30,000 in a nine-month academic year. "You look at an average," says Blount, "and you see starting salaries of 25, 26, or 27 thousand dollars for nine months, with no guarantee of summer salary. And if you look at what industry offers you with the total benefit package, you'll probably see a factor of 1.8 over the academic starting salary." 0003-2700/85/0357-526A$01.50/0 © 1985 American Chemical Society
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528 A · ANALYTICAL CHEMISTRY, VOL. 57, NO. 4, APRIL 1985
Focus Michael Parsons offers another startling statistic: In his 17 years at Arizona State, all but two of his PhD students who went into industry started out at a higher salary than Parsons was earning at the time. Although the salary differential is an important factor in deciding between academia and industry, many contend that it is not the principal one. Gary Hieftje agrees with Blount that the ratio of industrial to academic starting salaries is about 1.8, but he contends that academic and industrial salaries are nearly equal after about 10 years of employment and that the salaries of senior academic researchers often exceed what they could have earned in industry. Therefore, Hieftje insists, salary is not the most important factor discouraging people from pursuing academic careers. Another negative for those considering a career in academia is the prospect of fighting for grants. Obtaining grants simply requires more effort and more applications than it used to, and "grantsmanship" is at the heart of academic success. "If you don't have grants, you don't have the resources to perform your research, and if you don't have the resources, you don't do well," says Hieftje. "Most universities can't fund research at the same level they used to," Hieftje adds, "because state educational funding is shrinking. Therefore, the academic researcher has to go out and scratch out funds where he can. In industry, if you do your job well and address appropriate problems, the resources are more readily obtained." According to Henry Blount, an academic chemist "is expected to raise money, recruit graduate students, teach effectively at the undergraduate and graduate levels, publish papers, and, in his spare time, serve on a few committees. If you're trying to raise a family, you're going to have to scramble to raise money in the summer also; otherwise that $27,000 is going to be spread over 12 months, not nine. If you get all this together and things are going well at the university, they may tenure you in five years, and if not, you're on the bricks, pal. Now that's not a very inviting thing to look forward to for an analytical chemist in the job market for the first time, especially in light of the recent spate of negative tenure decisions. "As a community," Blount continues, "we need to think seriously about ways to teach young analytical chemists the nontechnical skills that are essential to success in academia. These skills can be taught either through the traditional postdoctoral route or
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530 A · ANALYTICAL CHEMISTRY, VOL. 57, NO. 4, APRIL 1985
Focus through other means, such as graduate courses on the professional aspects of chemistry." Nevertheless, young people do continue to look forward to careers in teaching, an indication that the academic life offers many countervailing benefits and rewards. "I agree there would be a decrease in salary," admits one analytical chemist in government who is currently interviewing for an academic position and who requested anonymity. "But if you live on a college campus as part of an academic environment, the cost of living is going to be lower in most cases, so you can put up with a little bit less salary. I've heard that the academic salaries are about $3000 per month, assuming you've done a year or two of postdoctoral work. Normally, when you start out in academia, they'll pay your salary the first summer. So it's not much lower than what industry is paying starting PhDs, which is about $36,000. My feeling is that the salary is not that different—but I admit I could be in for a big surprise." This same individual, who is probably representative of many young academic hopefuls, is not deterred by the tenure system either. "I don't think people getting out of college look at the tenure issue closely in their decision. Tenure is five or six years down the road. What people do look at are differences in salaries and the amount of work that has to be done. That's what I've heard most people say—you're going to take a low salary and you're going to work your tail off. "I want to establish my own research program and work on my own ideas, the kind of research I want to see done," he adds. "Academia offers the freedom to do long-term fundamental research instead of working on short-term project- and product-related problems. I think the trade-offs are worth it. It's like starting your own business. When you start your own business, you have to work a lot harder, usually for fewer rewards at first. But if you make it, you can surpass what other people have been making all along." In the final analysis, perhaps the most stimulating aspect of academic life is helping students to develop their talents and abilities and watching as they thrive in their chosen scientific careers—whether academic, industrial, or governmental. As Gary Hieftje puts it, "Even if academic salaries are significantly lower—which I don't believe—the opportunity to help people grow intellectually will always attract people to teaching." S.A.B.
