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Ind. Eng. Chem. Res. 1998, 37, 2078-2080
A Steady-State Planning Model for Faculty Balance James Wei† School of Engineering and Applied Science, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544
The leading research universities have a very high ratio of senior faculty to junior faculty (S/J) which is close to 6 instead of a more youthful ratio of 2 or 3. A steady-state planning model is presented here that contains three parameters: R, which is the ratio of time spent by a typical person as a senior faculty to time spent as a junior faculty; p, which is the probability of a junior faculty receiving tenure; and S2/S1, which is the ratio of senior faculty hired from the outside to senior faculty promoted from inside. Transient effects have a profound impact on this ratio, but are qualitatively discussed in this model. In the short run, the only effective method to reduce S/J would be to hire only junior faculty. We need to find ways to live with a value of S/J ) 6. Introduction
Table 1. Faculty Balance in Research Universities
Chemical engineering analysis can be applied to many topics, and one of them is the composition of the faculty in our universities. Most people would agree that a significant fraction of the university faculty should be young assistant professors, but the tendency at a research university is to have a large group of distinguished senior faculty who are fountainheads of wisdom for the entire nation, sprinkled with a small proportion of junior faculty. There are many arguments in favor of a significant proportion of junior faculty: they are more open to new scientific developments and changes in society goals, they are closer to the students in age and value systems, they cost less, and they are less risky for a department as they represent short-term investments. Some universities have rules on the “optimal ratio” between senior and junior faculty, such as 2/1 or 3/1. On the other hand, most of the research chemical engineering departments have a ratio that is twice as large or more. Some universities extol the virtues of their “optimal ratio,” and then live with a reality that is far from these ideal and unattainable values. Because there is no longer a mandatory retirement for the faculty, this ratio may rise further in the future. Let us examine the current data on a group of research universities. The data on 22 departments in Table 1 is obtained from the “Chemical Engineering Faculty Directory, 1996-1997,” published by the AIChE. The emeritus faculty are not counted. These departments have 367 senior faculty and 63 junior faculty, so the S/J ratio is 5.83. For many universities, the associate professors have tenure, but this is not necessarily the case in places such as MIT. When we characterize the balance as the ratio S/J, the values range from 2.33 in Stanford and 3.00 at Illinois to infinity in Cornell and RPI, because there are currently no junior faculty. Only two departments have a ratio of e3, 11 departments are between 3 and 6, and nine departments are >6. Therefore collectively, the average research universities have a ratio of S/J that is two to three times the “optimal ratio.” From the point of view of academic administration, the question is how did we get this way, and what can we do about this? †
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university
full prof
assoc prof
asst prof
all prof
S/J
Cal Tech 7 1 2 10 4.00 Cal Berkeley 12 2 3 17 4.67 Carnegie Mellon 12 1 4 17 3.25 Cornell 9 6 0 15 8 Delaware 19 3 3 25 7.33 Georgia Tech 21 8 5 34 5.80 Houston 11 3 1 15 14.00 Illinois UC 6 3 3 12 3.00 Michigan 13 6 2 21 9.50 Minnesota 22 7 5 34 5.80 MIT 22 6 6 34 4.67 Northwestern 11 4 3 18 5.00 Penn State 11 6 2 19 8.50 Pennsylvania 8 6 2 16 7.00 Princeton 14 1 1 16 15.00 Purdue 16 4 5 25 4.00 Rice 12 3 1 16 15.00 RPI 10 4 0 14 8 Stanford 6 1 3 10 2.33 Texas at Austin 19 1 4 24 5.00 Texas A&M 12 4 4 20 4.00 Wisconsin 9 5 4 18 3.50 total 282 85 63 430 5.83 max 22 8 6 34 min 6 1 0 10 avg 12.82 3.86 2.86 19.55 std 4.88 2.12 1.63 6.99
% junior 20 18 24 0 12 15 7 25 10 15 18 17 11 13 6 20 6 0 30 17 20 22 15 30 0
A Steady-State Planning Model Let us consider a department that is in steady state, so that it is neither growing nor shrinking in size, and its policies are constant over a course of half century. Let us consider this admittedly strange place as a starting point, and modify the assumptions later. A typical junior faculty is hired when he or she obtains a doctorate, say at age 28, and stays in the position of junior faculty for 6 years. All junior faculty gets tenure at age 34, and stays on as senior faculty until age 70 and then retires. For this typical faculty member, the ratio R ) (70 - 34)/(34 - 28) ) 36/6 ) 6.0 is the ratio of years spent as senior faculty to years spent as junior faculty. The time to tenure is a controlling factor on the value of R. For departments that tend to give tenure after 5 years or for a brilliant candidate who gets early tenure, the ratio R goes up to 37/5 ) 7.4; and for departments that tend to give tenure after 8 years, the ratio R goes down to 4.25. Another controlling factor
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on the value of R is the resignation or early retirement of the senior faculty, such as retiring 6 years earlier, which reduces the size of R to 5.0. The faculty is a collection of such typical faculty members, and
S/J ) R
(1)
The university administration can encourage, but cannot cause the early resignation or retirement of the senior faculty. As a matter of fact, the faculty that resign early tend to be the stars who may start a new company or be raided by another university with a more attractive package of opportunities and compensations. Thus, the parameter R has the form but does not qualify as a “control variable.” Let us consider a more realistic scenario where a fraction p < 1 of the junior faculty gets tenure after 6 years, so that the department must hire more than one junior faculty to have one senior faculty at the steady state; in fact the department must hire 1/p junior faculty. In that case, the number of senior faculty is proportion to 36, and the number of junior faculty is proportional to 6/p, so that ratio S/J ) 36/(6/p) ) Rp:
S/J ) Rp
(2)
For some of the most prestigious mathematics or physics departments, p e 0.1, so that they hire 10 junior faculty to have one surviving senior faculty. For such departments, S/J becomes 6 × 0.1 ) 0.6! This ratio would give the department a very youthful appearance, and tends to create a large social gap between the the senior and the junior faculty. We do not have published statistics on the value of p in chemical engineering departments of research universities, but my impression is that it averages ∼0.5. Normally, a department hires the best assistant professors that it can attract, lavishes startup funds and mentors on him/her to groom him/her for tenure, and rejoices if he/she gets tenure. A department cannot compete successfully in recruiting the best young faculty if it has a history of very low p, as the advisors of the candidates will point out the historical bone-yard as a warning. A department will also risk the appearance of having no standards if everyone gets tenure. Thus, p is also not an appropriate “control variable.” If a department operates under this scenario, the expected value of S/J becomes 6 × 0.5 ) 3.0, which is close enough to the “optimal ratio.” As a matter of fact, only two departments out of 22 have a ratio of S/J e 3.0, and nine departments are >6.0. Even if p ) 1, the ratio S/J could not rise
