Chem Dept. faces tough recruitment market

the University's most recent attempts to recruit top Chemistry professors have been rejected. It's not their fault. According to department heads and professors from several top chemistry programs, Penn's inability to recruit any senior faculty members over the past two years is a common phenomenon among programs seeking to hire the nation's best scientists. In an effort to increase the size of its 30-person faculty, Penn's Chemistry Department has made three offers to senior professors at the University of Wisconsin, Yale University and the University of Pittsburgh over the past two years. "Penn is not the only institution that has failed in attempts to hire senior faculty," Yale University Chemistry Department Chairperson Donald Crothers said. "It is a low-probability activity." Despite the opening of the state-of-the-art, $52 million Roy and Diana Vagelos Laboratories last fall -- along with other potential lures Penn touts, like Philadelphia's status as a home to many pharmaceutical companies -- all three offers were rejected. Penn officials said they expect to make two or three more offers within the next few months. According to many Yale, Harvard and Pittsburgh professors, the reasons for these rejections go far beyond comparing the lab facilities at different schools. "If they are above a certain minimum standard, laboratories are seldom the determining factor," Pittsburgh Chemistry Department Chairperson Craig Wilcox said. "[Laboratories] are like ball parks? building a new ballpark doesn't guarantee success in recruiting great athletes." The professors agreed that the frustration Penn's Chemistry Department is experiencing stems from basic problems of supply and demand. "Penn has aimed very high in the people they have targeted, so it is not surprising if the failure rate is high," Harvard Chemistry Professor Eric Jacobsen said. "You would almost worry if it were the other way around." Making matters worse for Penn, the supply of qualified senior faculty is not the only issue standing in the way of new appointments. Indeed, several other factors exist that can complicate the decision to switch universities. "There are many reasons: home institutions often respond with generous counter-offers, family issues, unknown elements in the place [a professor]? may be moving to," Jacobsen said. In fact, two of the offers the department made over the past two years were rejected because of spousal issues. "In two of the cases [involving the professors from Yale and Wisconsin] it was the family reason that dominated," Penn Chemistry Department Chairperson Hai Lung-Dai said last month. "Both wives had very good job tracks and would have had to suffer setbacks in their own careers." Yale Professor John Wood, one of the two professors who refused Penn's offer, could not be reached for comment. Dai would not reveal the name of the Wisconsin professor, and officials there would not comment on the issue. A counter-offer by a home institution was responsible for the third rejected offer, which had been made to Pittsburgh Chemistry Professor Peter Wipf. Although Wipf declined to comment, a recent Chronicle of Higher Education article reported that Pittsburgh offered Wipf the directorship of a new Chemistry Center after Penn's offer was made. Yale, Harvard, and Pittsburgh professors stressed that strategic offers like Pittsburgh's play an integral role in the recruitment process, often making it nearly impossible for a university to steal faculty members from another. "The home universities of outstanding individuals make exceptional efforts to retain their stars," Crothers said. After surveying Penn's activities in the recruitment arena thus far, Harvard, Yale, and Pittsburgh professors are optimistic about the possibility of Penn's future success. "They have not given up and therefore have not failed," Wilcox said. "They were rejected by some, but they will find others who will accept."¬