Bacon's Rebellion

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UVa’s Faculty Hiring Strategy

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James A. Bacon
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UVa's faculty recruitment strategy revealed

Every so often, “Virginia,” the University of Virginia alumni magazine, runs articles shedding light on the administration of Mr. Jefferson’s university. The latest issue focuses on the challenge of replacing some 300 aging faculty members and recruiting 100 more as part of its five-year hiring plan.

The university underwent a hiring boom in the 1970s when the university was expanding to accommodate the Baby Boom generation. Now the young guns hired four decades ago are old dues on the verge of retirement. Not only must UVa replace a large cohort of senior professors, it has to compete against other universities doing the same thing.

UVa is adopting two newish strategies to reshape its faculty. The first is “clustering,” which is hiring up to seven professors in multidisciplinary fields. The idea is that innovation, insight and academic breakthroughs often occur at the intersection of disciplines — such as neuroscience and traumatic brain injury, an area that UVa has targeted.

“The best way to build strength in an interdisciplinary field like the brain and neuroscience, says Provost Tom Katsouleas, “is to bring together the top talent and best minds from departments that touch on that across the University.”

The other strategy is to stay open to a “TOPs hire” — a target of opportunity hire — that would pick up a superstar faculty member even if the university isn’t actively searching in his or her field.

The UVa administration has made it a priority to increase the prestige of university faculty in its bid to become renowned as a “top ten” university. The turnover in tenured professors gives it a once-in-a-generation chance to make big gains. Of course, hiring top faculty costs money — significantly more than the university could afford on a standard state pay scale. Salaries must be supplemented by endowments, foundation grants or other sources such as the university’s controversial $2.2 billion Strategic Investment Fund.

As a Virginia taxpayer, UVa alumnus and interested citizen, I’d like to know how much money UVa has set aside for recruitment, and where the money will come from. Faculty salaries must compete with other priorities such as administration, buildings & grounds, and, of course, affordability. Unfortunately, the article does not provide any numbers that would enable stakeholders to evaluate the hiring initiative. Perhaps that information falls in the domain of “competitive intelligence” and the UVa administration is reluctant to share it. But if UVa wants to maintain the trust of the public, it needs to make that information available.

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2 responses to “UVa’s Faculty Hiring Strategy”

  1. LarrytheG Avatar
    LarrytheG

    re: “superstars” – Never understood how choice of faculty had any effect on prospective enrollees…

    Do would-be students or their parents know who is or is not on the faculty -and that affects which college they choose?

    but then why is this issue one in which anyone besides the folks who administer and operate higher ed institutions would have any informed interest, much less want some sort of input into the selection or cost of the selections?

    I simply do not buy the argument that it’s the Universities “job” to “assure” …. “affordability” – whatever that really means.

    Has anyone really “defined” what is “affordable” or not in the first place.

    This whole line of thought is a bit silly.. when there are a “market” full of education options for people to choose from.

    This is sort of like some folks wanting price controls because taxpayers help fund higher ed – as if taxpayers should want the govt to control the price of health care or tolls on highways or other things where tax dollars are involved.

    But FIRST – before we even get to THAT point – can someone take a stab at HOW they would decide what tuition at UVA or other higher ed … SHOULD cost? Is there a process or metrics that would be used to essentially claim that tuition at UVA should be “X” rather than “Y”? Or is this just a never-ending gripe that no matter what the price is – it’s too much?

    How about it? Does someone want to give a shot on what college SHOULD cost these days ?

  2. Reed Fawell 3rd Avatar
    Reed Fawell 3rd

    This focus in “Virginia,” the University of Virginia alumni magazine, on UVA’s new hiring strategy is, as usual, an exercise in deception and distraction deployed in the main through platitudes and pablum.

    For example the key issues in the minds of those who are running these new hire programs are not tradition, honor, mentor-ship, or even generational turnover. Far from it.

    Instead the the primary driver behind this hiring plan, and how it is being carried out, is to radically alter the mission and purpose of the University of Virginia per an altogether new model aptly described in earlier UVA internal documents.

    But it is also described by Mr. Koch’s comment found in the recent article found here at baconsrebellion.com/2016/12/liberty-university-rise:

    “It remains to be seen if (delete Liberty, insert UVa) will be able to crack the upper reaches of national university rankings (and those within individual academic disciplines). For better or worse, the coin of the realm in academic rankings is a considerable cohort of faculty members who consistently publish in top-flight refereed outlets, garner externally generated research grants, and obtain external consultancies. The waves generated by the scholarship of faculty remain far more important in prestige contests than their teaching abilities.

    Recruiting prestigious faculty members also will drive up salary costs, and allowing them to spend more time on research will translate into lighter teaching loads per faculty member, which in turn will require the university to hire more faculty. As … faculty costs rise, cash flow will shrink.”

    Hence, for example, “clusters hires” and “TOPs hires” are means to the end of building a science research driven university driven by rent seeking, profit making, and influence peddling, in alliance with big business and big government.

    A secondary driver of this new hiring plan is changing American culture for progressive ideological ends while degrading if not destroying the remnants of traditional culture left at UVa . Hence the ‘diversity initiative’. This will fill and replace professors in the ‘unimportant’ but really important liberal arts disciplines: such as history, cultural studies, political science, and literary, religious, and philosophy studies at UVa.

    UVa alumni are being distracted and deceived by their own UVA Magazine as it uses false pretenses to raise and reach into Alum’s giving to fund such programs. So much for Modern Honor at UVA.

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