For Faculty Buyouts
posted by Lawrence Cunningham
Universities nationwide are in a vise, devastating for most, but an opportunity for a few. The grip is how financial woes dictate reduced spending while rankings intensity demands enhanced research prowess.
For most universities, the cross-pressures mean spending and research curtailed. But a few universities can make the dilemma others face into an opportunity. They can shed highly-paid professors who do not conduct research and hire newer professors devoted to that. That saves money and promotes valuable research.
This strategy will not help already-established national research universities like Harvard or many University of California schools. They must rely on furloughs and other cuts to deal with fiscal adversity and cling to hope that existing research resources will hold their own. Nor would it pay off for the vast majority of universities lower in the academic hierarchy. They must not only resort to furloughs and such but are not positioned to leverage research investment.
But it may be an ideal strategy for well-established and well-regarded universities towards but not at the top of the academic hierarchy. My employer, George Washington University, may be the perfect example and probable beneficiary of this strategy. GW is a centuries-old, large and famous university. It is well-respected for excellent pedagogy, student life and prospects and a generally solid research orientation. But it is not routinely ranked as among the finest national research universities.
That is about to change, under the vision of President Steven Knapp, formerly Provost at Johns Hopkins. Last semester, emblematically, he authorized offering buyouts to nearly half the tenured professors in the University’s School of Engineering and Applied Science. A half dozen accepted last week. That will free up fourteen new slots for academic appointment next year.
The cost-benefit calculus is easy, though figures are unreported. Induce voluntary retirement of professors not inclined to research at a price of x, say half their salary, and recruit new research-oriented faculty for like compensation. Gain both fiscal stability and research prowess. For a university like GW, that economic calculus points to a high probability payoff in catapulting to the next level in the academic hierarchy, towards the top.
Not all constituencies see things this way, of course. Some receiving buyout proposals, and objecting, attribute the scheme to saving money only. They and supporters protest elevating economics over education. They lambast the seeming veneration of research over teaching, asserting that the university gives up talented teachers in favor of mere researchers, and sacrifices valuable institutional memory and history.
Those arguments revive long-rejected false dichotomies between teaching and research. Mature modern university academics abhor the assertion that teaching and research are mutually exclusive or even in tension. They appreciate the inherent interrelation of teaching and research. True, some academics may love teaching or scholarship more than the other. But few sophisticated academics accept that passionate pursuit of the one excludes passionate pursuit of the other. Most say the passions are symbiotic.
Few schools are positioned to escape the current vise gripping most universities. But GW and those in its cohort can capitalize on it. GW’s Knapp reportedly will continue to offer similar buyouts to faculties in other departments. The payoff in academic and fiscal results will be substantial.
February 17, 2010 at 9:23 pm
Posted in: Education
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Responses (3)
Christa L. - February 18, 2010 at 9:04 pm
Do you think that this means more new legal research positions or that this is mostly confined to the sciences? Coming from a hard science background, I found that publishing seems to be more important for the reputation of science professors than law professors, at least for students’ determination of the quality of the school.
Christa L. - February 18, 2010 at 9:05 pm
Adorable tiger with glasses, by the way!
Bill K. - February 20, 2010 at 7:45 pm
I read this article with interest since I’m a 60 year old professor at a major research university and might be willing to look at a buyout. Unfortunately, for most research schools, this is not a cost effective option. Due to salary inversion, the cost of hiring a new faculty member is more than twice what I’m making. New accounting faculty are making upwards of $200,000 plus a third for summer and teaching only 1 course a year. I’m making half of that amount and teaching 4 courses during the year.
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