III.
Faculty Recruitment and Retention
Open-Ended
Questions Regarding Recruitment and Retention (Q 10a)
Q10a.
What are the most significant positive factors that impact faculty recruitment
in your unit?
There
were several significant factors that respondents believed had a positive
impact on faculty recruitment in their units. Each of these factors
is described below and respondents’ quotes are included to provide the
reader with a better understanding of the issue. All items are listed
in order from most to least frequently cited.
The
most commonly mentioned factors were:
“National
and international reputation of other faculty in the department.”
“Presence
of a number of faculty with world-class research programs.”
- Salary
and benefits
“Competitive
salary.”
“Excellent
retirement.”
- Collegial
environment
“…We
have had a tradition of collegiality in our department that has
helped with recruitment, but that is not as strong as it used to
be.”
“Good
collegial relationships among faculty.”
- Availability
and quality of resources and facilities
“My
department is active and large, with numerous facilities of high
quality….”
“Ready
access to University-wide core facilities, e.g., campus wide mass
spectrometry center, sequencing facilities, libraries, etc.”
- Supportive
research environment
“Purdue
is a prestigious university with plenty of research resources.”
“Research
climate good in most subdisciplines.”
- Balance
between research and teaching responsibilities
“Nice
balance between teaching load and research responsibilities.”
“Low
teaching load compared to other institutions.”
- Opportunity
for collaboration within unit and across schools
“Opportunities
for intellectual exchange among colleagues.”
“There
are many outstanding colleagues across the university—great scholars—with
whom to interact and collaborate.”
- The
start-up package
“Fairly
good start-up package.”
“Good
startup monies from department or school.”
- Positive
and supportive administrative environment
“Strong
leadership and a Department Head who has real practical experience
and hasn’t forgotten what got him here.”
- Quality
of undergraduate and graduate students
“Ability
to recruit excellent students.”
“Quality
of graduate students - past and present.”
- Pleasant
community and a good place to raise family
“The
community is good, and the Greater Lafayette area is a good place
to raise a family, and there are strong schools in the community.”
“Community/quality
of life factors: schools, green space, short commute, low crime rate.”
- Low/reasonable
cost of living
“Reasonable
housing prices.”
“Cost
of living is reasonable in the Lafayette area.”
Differences
by School
In
every school but one, by far the most commonly cited positive influence
on faculty recruitment was the prestige of the unit and/or the university.
The exception was Veterinary Medicine, where faculty believed that both
the quality of faculty members and salary and benefits were the most important
positive factors.
Another
observation concerns the positive influence of the balance between research
and teaching responsibilities in one’s units. This perspective was shared
primarily by faculty in Liberal Arts and Education, while faculty in the
remaining schools scarcely addressed this.
Click
to continue with Question Responses (Q 10b)
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