<p>UW just reported over $1 Billion in total research grants last fiscal year. That’s a lot.</p>
<p>Total awards: $1,028.6M
Fed awards: $565.4M
Non Fed awards: $463.2M
Research Expenditures: 2nd
Federal Funding: 5th
Non-Federal Funding: 1st</p>
<p>I know Cornell is on record as having to replace one-third of its faculty in the next ten years, asserting that requirement as a major impetus for its current $4 billion campaign. That is the situation with many other Ivies and major universities:</p>
<p>“Cornell expects to lose one-third—up to 600—of its faculty in the next 10 years. A nationwide surge in retirements will make competition for top faculty the most intense it has been in 40 years. New funds are needed for endowed professorships and state-of-the-art labs and classrooms to successfully recruit the next generation of great professors.”</p>
<p>For three million, one can have a senior professorship named; for two million, a full professorship.</p>
<p>see also:</p>
<p><a href=“http://cornellsun.com/node/24552[/url]”>http://cornellsun.com/node/24552</a></p>
<p>Redcrimblue,</p>
<p>Thanks for the link. Does anybody else knows if the faculty replacement problem Cornell faces is particular to the school or something that other schools will experience as well?</p>
<p>This would bode well for students, like my son, who just started graduate school with the idea of going into a academia. I am sure quite a few poster in the Graduate School section of CC would be happy to learn about potential changes in the job market.</p>
<p>All schools. Yes, good time for new PhD’s–especially in tech and science fields.</p>
<p>The graying of tenured profs is widespread, the result of both hiring sprees and the lifting of the retirement age. It has made the renewal of faculty with energetic young profs with up-to-date knowledge, involved in cutting edge research difficult. But many of the older faculty are pushing 70 and some are even older.</p>
<p>barrons, martie:</p>
<p>Thanks for expanding on the subject. The only evidence that I had was anecdotal. The faculty in the department where my son did his undergraduate work ahd quite a few members in the grey zone. To make matters more complicated one of the younger faculty members was lured away by a competing school. At the same time the “offending” school appears to be worried about loosing one of his top faculty members to yet another rival. It seems to me that at some point the “superpowers” will have to reach a d</p>
<p>artiesdad:</p>
<p>If you google “the graying of universities,” you’ll find plenty of fodder. Here’s one:</p>
<p>Graying of US academia stirs debate - The Boston Globe
<a href=“http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2006/12/27/graying_of_us_academia_stirs_debate/[/url]”>www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2006/12/27/graying_of_us_academia_stirs_debate/</a></p>
<p>The superpowers will never stop competing for the best.</p>
<p>I’m a little more concerned about the “arms race” going on at the level below the elites.</p>
<p>A couple of years ago I was gathering data on research spending and faculty recruitment, and in my search I was surprised at the number of schools which had stated as a formal institutional goal the attainment of a certain ranking in research. It was starting to look like 50 schools were all racing to crack the Top 20 or Top 30. All of them were investing resources to build facilities and offer great startups to established faculty at top places and up-and-coming faculty from all over. And they’d all be competing more intensively for federal and other research dollars. </p>
<p>They can’t all be winners. Are they in bidding wars for faculty? How much is this driving costs up? Are they overbuilding? Will they be able to sustain their plans?</p>
<p>I used to kid around that I went to “one of the forty top-twenty schools” in my professional specialization. Yep, somehow colleges would rather debatably be in a top-twenty group than indisputably in a top-fifty group.</p>
<p>“Are they in bidding wars for faculty? How much is this driving costs up? Are they overbuilding? Will they be able to sustain their plans?”</p>
<p>Yes
Somewhat but not much–a few big $$$ hires out of 100’s hardly impacts the total spending
Yes
No.</p>
<p>See article link for problems with execution of the idea of hiring some research stars. Even at top schools.</p>
<p><a href=“http://washingtontimes.com/article/20071006/METRO/110060038/1004[/url]”>http://washingtontimes.com/article/20071006/METRO/110060038/1004</a></p>
<p>Big faculty hires bring in far more research dollars than their salary costs. These grants fund lab costs, partial salary costs, grad student assistanceship costs, and univeristy overhead costs.</p>
<p>Sometimes, but when you spend millions on special lab space to lure one guy the payback will be very long if ever.</p>
<p>Interesting topic. Universities are not just in an arms war with each other, but with industry that hires an increasing number of PhDs, especially as sophisticated modeling is applied to everything from finance to genomics. (One of my S’s math profs was lured from an assistant professorship to work for DE Shaw.) Silicon Valley is heating up again, and kids who once might have thought about academic careers are heading to Google, while dreaming about launching their own companies. In some fields, industry is the cutting edge, not academia.</p>
<p>The walls between industry and universities have come down in recent years and I don’t think they will ever go back up. I think that not only will there be more research partnerships, but more people moving back and forth between careers in industry and teaching. In fact, I wonder whether there will be such a thing as an “academic career” for the next generation outside of the humanities. What do other people think?</p>
<p>The race is good for everyone. It even trickles down to lower levels. </p>
<p>My DS is a beneficiary of this competition. </p>
<p>Research dollars do flow to specific areas. A lot of research dollars, but only to specific areas of technology. Students, who later have positions of authority do remember their professors and schools.</p>
<p>I think it tends to undervalue areas where research funding is not plentiful. Most languages and liberal arts are getting very little in way of new anything.</p>
<p>A few languages and liberal arts of the (terrorist type) are getting a good share of the $. Critical thinking and analysis.</p>
<p>An Evangelist, would this person make a good analyst for our Nation?</p>
<p>Improving the whole of Harvard? I can imagine that. First, SEAS. Next, IKEA.</p>
<p>For those at UWub: <a href=“http://uwnews.washington.edu/ni/article.asp?articleID=36725[/url]”>http://uwnews.washington.edu/ni/article.asp?articleID=36725</a></p>
<p>University of Washington did very well on this.</p>