Faculty%20Development%20in%20the%20US:%20Selection%20

1
Faculty Development in the USSelection
Retention and the Faculty Life Cycle
US-China Computer Science Leadership Summit
Debra Richardson University of California,
Irvine Valerie Taylor Texas AM University
2
Faculty Recruitment

• The top US universities are competing for the
  best and brightest new PhDs and also the
  distinguished scholars in the discipline
• Faculty selected based on the expectation that
  they will succeed in being promoted through the
  ranks
• Faculty Statistics in research universities
  (PhD-granting) (according to CRA Taulbee Survey)
• Total faculty sizes continue to grow at a rate of
  3 during 2004-05
• 85 of faculty hires for 2004-05 were new PhDs

3
Faculty Losses

• Of 5,962 faculty at research universities , 213
  faculty left in 2004-05, a loss of only 3.7
• Faculty Losses
• Died 8
• Retired 56
• Took Nonacademic Position 39
• Took Academic Position Elsewhere 61
• Changed to Part-Time 16
• Other 25
• Unknown 8
• Less than .04 transfer among universities

4
Faculty Diversity and Equity

• Most universities in the U.S. focus on increasing
  diversity of the faculty ranks
• Current blend of faculty in research universities
  (also according to CRA Taulbee Survey)
• 13 women
• 20 Asian
• 6 non-resident alien
• 0.03 URM African-American, Native American,
  Hispanic
• Equitable hiring and advancement of gender and
  ethnic minorities
• Requires institutional transformation and a
  change in culture

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Challenges in Transforming Culture

• Eliminating sub rosa hiring (behind the scenes)
  and promoting practices of the old guard
• (in the U.S. we call this the old boys network)
• Overcoming perceived issue of availability
  (lack thereof) in narrow disciplines
• Training Deans and Chairs to utilize best
  practices to achieve diversity and equity
• Encourage departments to search more broadly
• Compensate for gender differences in negotiation
  styles and self-promotion

Maintaining an institutional force that notices
points of weakness and takes action
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How to transform what matters?

• Climate Change requires leadership
• Chair and Dean must encourage effective practices
  in recruitment, advancement and retention
• For women and minorities, critical mass is
  important and difficult initially
• Workshop series for chairs and emerging leaders
• Equity advisors as faculty assistants to dean to
  seek out and ensure best practices are followed
• participate in recruitment process, approve
  search committees, advertising plan final
  recruitment
• implement faculty development programs
• investigate inequities that leadership might miss
• tailored to Computer Science is important

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Recruitment Best Practices

• Devote significant investment in the hiring of
  new faculty who will succeed!
• Best way to hire the best faculty is to conduct a
  broadly targeted/defined search
• Career partner program
• Partners of women faculty (in US) are more likely
  to be faculty members
• Requests for new faculty provisions must address
  show commitment to diversity and equity

8
Faculty Retention

• Critical to the success of a department
• Its much more expensive to bring in a new
  faculty member than retain a good one
• Activities important for faculty retention
• Faculty mentoring - especially junior faculty but
  everyone
• Providing a top research environment, and
  rewarding research activities
• Providing an environment in which good teaching
  and service can be accomplished without
  negatively impacting research
• Promoting faculty via awards, professorships,
  chairs

9
Faculty Mentoring

• From assistant professor through full professor
• Programs especially for junior faculty
• New faculty orientation
• One-on-one mentoring for all junior faculty
• Acclimate new faculty to department and
  university culture
• Provide feedback on papers and proposals
• Help them get involved with professional service
• Sometimes useful to have one person in the
  department as well as a faculty member outside
  the department
• Strategic planning review panels by senior
  faculty
• New faculty research symposium to introduce new
  faculty to established faculty

10
Environment

• Good research and teaching requires recruitment
  of excellent students
• Both graduate and undergraduate students
• Equipment space needs are critical for both,
  especially research
• Encourage and facilitate multi-disciplinary
  discussions
• Collaborations lead to some of the best research
• Provide seed funding for initiating new
  collaborations

11
Promote Faculty

• Value and appreciate faculty
• Announce awards to colleagues and students
• Nominate faculty for internal and external
  (international) awards and recognitions
• National Academies, ACM Fellow, IEEE Fellow, AAAI
  Fellow, SIG awards,
• Engage in development activities for endowments
  for professorships chairs

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The Academic Ladder

• President/Chancellor
• Provost/EVC
• Dean
• Associate Dean
• Department Head/Chair

• Chaired Professor
• Distinguished Professor

Professor Associate Professor Assistant
Professor Postdoctoral Researcher Doctor of
Philosophy
tenure
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Reward Structure

• Strategies for SuccessComponents of the Job
  for which faculty are rewarded

Research Scholarship Teaching Service
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Tenure

• a status granted after a trial period to a
  teacher protecting him her from summary
  dismissal - Websters Dictionary
• Tenure is a long term commitment by the
  institution and is not taken lightly
• A club with lifetime membership
• 70 of CS/CS regular ranks faculty at PhD
  granting institutions are tenured
• 60 of women, 72 of men are tenured

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Tenure Time Line

• Usually a six-seven year clock
• 7 year probationary period
• Yearly oral evaluations by Dept. Head/Chair
• Intermediate mid-career review during year 3
• Tenure review usually during year 6
• Based upon work from first 5 years
• Tenure effective in year 7
• Typical evaluation (for tenure and beyond)
• Regular written evaluations by Dept. Merit
  Promotion (MP) Committee, Dept. Head/Chair, Dean
  and Campus/School MP Committee
• Promotion and tenure review with letters from
  external evaluators

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Primary Criteria what matters?

• Evidence of scholarly distinction, accomplishment
  and impact in your field
• coherent body of important work
• significant theme showing growth as a scholar
• sufficient productivity to show promise for
  sustained productivity
• respect by acknowledged experts
• good teaching portfolio good evaluations in a
  blend of courses (size, undergrad/grad)
• high quality, reliable service so that colleagues
  respect your contributions to the department,
  university, research community
• Different fields and different universities have
  different cultures - such as,
• how publication patterns affect expectations
• how collaboration is assessed
• how impact is measured

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No substitute for Quality

• Basic factors
• excellence in research
• excellence in teaching
• excellence in service
• Research
• How many and what kind of papers are expected?
• How much grant support is expected?
• How is support from industry viewed?
• How is interdisciplinary collaboration viewed?
• Is your research area viewed favorably?

• Teaching
• What do faculty expect of students?
• What do students expect from faculty?
• What do colleagues expect from your course?
• Service
• How much service is really required?
• How much can be gained from service by getting to
  know others on campus?

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Research

• Evidence of research impact is most important
• Research independence is critical
• especially independence from PhD advisor
• clear individual contributions in collaborative
  work
• Publications
• Quality before quantity in publications
• Journal publications
• Not all journals are equal journal reputations
  are best measure
• Conference and workshop publications are valued
  just as highly
• Bring visibility and more rapid recognition of
  your work
• All conferences/workshops are not created equal
  leading conferences, reputation and acceptance
  rates are measures of quality
• Research Funding and Graduate Advising
• Appropriate level of research funding from top
  agencies
• Excellent graduate students are important to
  advancing

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Tenure Dossier

• Impact must be documented in the tenure dossier
• Detailed CV
• Statement of contributions in research, teaching,
  and service
• External letters
• Leaders in the field evaluating the work, stating
• established in your field
• significant contributions with impact
• Publications
• Internal letters

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Advancement to Full Professor

• Based on international recognition as an
  established researcher and leader in the field
• Generally about 4-6 years beyond the Associate
  Professor level
• Recognized in your particular research area via
• Editorial boards, program chairs, committees,
  etc.
• About 1 of the faculty achieve the status of
  Distinguished Professor or Chaired Professor
• Based upon extremely distinguished research
  contributions
• Chaired professors carry with them an endowment
  generally from a philanthropist