Wanted: A few good profs

Penn faces tough competition in its attempts to recuit new Political Science, English and Chemistry professors. As the University's Political Science, English and Chemistry departments struggle to hire faculty, officials from peer institutions say their schools are in strikingly similar situations. Majors, non-majors and graduate students in the nation's highest-ranking universities sit in the classrooms of shorthanded departments -- and officials don't expect this trend to change any time soon, saying it's more important to make the right hire rather than a quick one. "We will choose to carry forward a recruitment for an additional year rather than offer a position to someone who is not at the top of our list," Penn Provost Robert Barchi said. Indeed, Barchi compared the national faculty search to a baseball draft, saying that every university must continuously seek out "the top players." And with schools across the country all trying to sign the top free agents, Penn's peer universities are also playing the recruitment game. 'Only the best' In addition to Penn -- which has placed ads in nationally circulated professional journals and The Chronicle of Higher Education -- Cornell, Yale, Princeton and Duke universities will scour the nation this year for top faculty in those departments. And School of Arts and Sciences Dean Samuel Preston cited the University of California at Los Angeles as one of the University's "leading competitors" for faculty in an age where the hiring tug-of-war is "going to heat up." "We and 10 other universities want to hire only the best people," Preston said, adding that the complex faculty search process starts at least 14 months in advance of a professor's start date and can take more than two years. Attributing the increase in faculty hirings to a rise in the college-aged population, Preston said competition for faculty will increase as more students start needing more professors. In the same vein, University President Judith Rodin said the search for faculty is growing more competitive. "I think in the early '90s, there was tendency to reduce the number of faculty slots," Rodin said, noting that course demand and curricular innovations are now requiring increased hiring initiatives. Now, she said, "we are all stealing from one another." With that in mind, the University has authorized approximately 35 SAS searches, concentrating in the six traditionally popular departments that Preston highlighted in last April's SAS strategic plan. The plan calls for increased funding and hiring in the Biology, Economics, English, History, Political Science and Psychology departments. "I don't share the sense that there is any difficulty in hiring at this point," Preston noted. Barchi agreed that the University can handle the tight faculty crunch. "There are a number of senior [faculty] appointments that are world class," Barchi said, pointing to Political Science Professor John DiIulio and Chemistry Professors Virgil Percec and Gary Molander, all of whom were recruited from other schools earlier this year. Political decisions Penn's Political Science Department -- which has lost several standing faculty members over the last two years to retirement, dissatisfaction and tenure issues -- is in the midst of a national faculty search. With about 20 standing faculty and over 200 undergraduate majors, the department -- which offers American politics, comparative politics, international relations and political theory concentrations -- will continue to recruit after successfully scoring three new appointments last spring: DiIulio, junior professor Jerome Maddox and senior hire Robert Vitalis. The department posted job positions on its World Wide Web site -- a strategy Yale also employs -- and in the American Political Science Personnel Newsletter over the summer and early fall. Penn Political Science Department Chairperson Ian Lustick said that as senior professors retire, the department has difficulty growing but is aiming for a "much younger and much stronger" American politics division in the future. "You gotta run faster just to stay in the same place," Lustick said, adding that sister institutions often raid Penn's distinguished faculty. "We do not consider ourselves to be a struggling department." According to Preston, the Political Science Department is striving for a collective group of roughly 27 full-time professors. The larger Department of Politics at Princeton University will also look search for faculty this year. "We hope to hire," Department of Politics Assistant Chairperson Diane Price said last week, adding that the school will look to recruit between eight and 10 junior- and senior-level faculty this year. The 45-member department, with 230 undergraduate majors, was ranked the second-most popular major at Princeton last year. Another top-tier university playing the recruitment game, Duke, has between 200 and 225 majors and 28 tenure-track faculty teaching. "We are always one of the top five majors in the university," Acting Political Science Department Chairperson John Aldrich said. Re-writing English Suffering the loss of five faculty members last spring, Penn's English Department -- the most popular undergraduate division with over 500 majors -- is searching for professors. Currently maintaining 32 standing faculty members, the English Department needs around eight more to reach the optimal number of around 40 professors, Interim English Department Chairperson John Richetti said earlier this month. The department will attempt to recruit four new professors this year, including two or three senior-level faculty. Last year, the department hired two assistant professors. Richetti blames the decrease in standing faculty on recent retirements, SAS budget problems and a "raidable" faculty -- meaning that other schools are actively trying to lure Penn professors away from their Bennett Hall home. Recruitment problems, Richetti added, are not the cause of the department's decrease in size. "There is no crisis that can't be solved by more appointments in English," he said, adding that the University has its pick from hundreds of the brightest young doctoral students in the country. The 48-member English Department at Duke, which recruited two of Penn's faculty members last spring -- former English Professor Maureen Quilligan, Duke's new department chairperson, and former African-American Studies Program Director Houston Baker -- will also continue to search for faculty this year. Duke's department in particular went down a crooked path after being top-ranked for years. The university finally called in a committee to reorganize and redirect the department, which national media reports had labeled as "troubled" before last year's successful effort to bolster its faculty ranks. And Princeton's English Department, with 22 tenured professors and about 180 undergraduate majors, will attempt to hire several junior professors this year, according to department staff. Princeton successfully hired one junior- and one senior-level faculty member last year. Balancing the equation After struggling to recruit senior faculty from other universities for the past three years, Penn's 32-member Chemistry Department has four new faculty members this year, including two senior professors. It still aims to recruit one more senior professor, a bio-organic chemist, before completing its recruitment initiative. The undergraduate division, which offers chemistry and biochemistry majors to 83 students, consistently placed at the high teens in terms of reputation, according to members of the Chemistry Department staff. "With the recent addition of several faculty members and continued success of existing programs, it is likely that the reputation ranking will quickly improve," Chemistry Department Chairperson Hai-Lung Dai said. The department, with divisions in biological, inorganic, organic and physical chemistry, offers 28 courses, including labs and graduate-level courses. In comparison to Penn, Cornell has about 85 chemistry majors and 35 faculty members. According to Cornell Chemistry Executive Director Earl Peters, the department recently ran an ad announcing an open search for two junior-level professors. Cornell hired a junior professor last year and still has one outstanding offer. "A lot of departments are looking for the very best people," Peters said, adding that the department is very selective. And according to Peters, intense faculty searches are nothing new. "It's been competitive all along," he said. Yale is also casting a search for Chemistry faculty members. After a failed search last year, the 23-member department will attempt to recruit three new professors this year, according to Susan Peters, the registrar in Yale's Chemistry Department.