FACULTY ATTRITION
October 13th, Wednesday, 5:00 PM
On Campus, SUB
Keith Doubt welcomed everyone, introduced AAUP, and started
us off with a reading from a book he’s
using in one of his classes. The book is ON CARING by M. Mayerhoff,
and the reading was on the need of THE CONSTANCY OF THE OTHER:
When part of what we care for is continually changing, the developmental
process of caring is inhibited. We know that humanism and science
are the two traditions that form a liberal arts community. We
also know that the foundation of humanism is respect for the notion
of caring. When caring is inhibited, the practice of humanism
wanes. This directly impacts the liberal arts community. This
is the primary reason why AAUP has become concerned about faculty
attrition.
Tom Marshall discussed some data from other universities about
faculty attrition (retirement is a large part of attrition: 25-45%;
at U. Minnesota rate of faculty attrition from 1990 to1998 was
about 5%). Then he suggested some costs of attrition:
1. Cost of travel and interviewing,
2. Start-up costs (~$40,000 in science),
3. Faculty and administrative time spent on searches,
4. Productivity costs.
John Ramsbottom and Mark Becker then discussed some preliminary
data obtained from the Vice President’s office (tentatively, it
looks like (not including retirements), 10 people retired in 1999,
and 33 people retired in the 4 years preceding 1999). They also
discussed a survey that they have developed and will be sending
out to people who have left Truman recently.
Keith then opened things up for discussion. Here is a list,
not complete, of some topics that came up:
Temporary versus Tenure-Track attrition,
Had those who left previously comunicated their
concerns, and if so where those concerns addressed
at all?
Both faculty and administration need to take
ownership of this problem,
Responsibilities of and rewards for conveners vary
quite a bit across campus, lack of power of
conveners sometimes problematic,
What is the purpose of this meeting? -> To raise consciousness,
Is there evidence that the division stucture is
correlated with the attrition rate?
The reason “location” (often given for leaving,
and often written off as something we can’t do
anything about) is actually a combination of
things we CAN do something about (jobs for
partners, support for family, etc),
Use of Rec center, PML, pool, etc. by spouses
appears to be more complicated than is necessary,
Tension between research and teaching,
Cost of health insurance.
Garry Gordon, who was present, addressed some of the issues
discussed. He pointed out some areas
where progess has been made, he listened to concerns that he had
not been aware of, and
pointed out that some areas he had no control over. It was suggested
by a number of people that
a sytematic method of processing problems as they arise may be
helpful.
—notes submitted by Peter Rolnick