Iowa State University Alumni Association| online edition | winter 2007
The High Cost of Attracting and Retaining Top Faculty

 


WINTER 2007
Home

Cover Story:
>>The power of one

Feature Story:
Time to celebrate

Departments:
Getting Started
Letters
Around Campus
Association News
Giving
Sports



THE HIGH COST OF ATTRACTING AND RETAINING TOP FACULTY

It was an opportunity was an opportunity he couldn’t ignore. Robert C. Brown – director of the Office
of Biorenewables Programs and professor of mechanical engineering – had an invitation from Purdue University to apply for a job. He was one of three top picks for director of a new Energy Center.

“Purdue is our biggest competitor in the field,” said Brown. “They’ve made some significant investments in the area of biorenewables, and it was attractive from that standpoint.”

What would it take to make Brown stay? Iowa State is already a leader in biorenewables, but Brown was looking for a commitment that the university would keep ahead of the curve, move decisively and quickly, maintain its leadership. Could Iowa State deliver?

As Iowa State works toward its goal of being the leading land-grant university in the nation, its leaders realize that the key is in having excellent faculty and holding on to leaders like Brown. “It’s pure and simple,” said ISU President Gregory Geoffroy. “The overall quality of the university is correlated with the quality of the faculty. They are the core of the institution.”

Meanwhile, faculty and administrators are wrestling with the same challenges faced by universities across the nation: how to retain outstanding faculty who are being wooed (and, in some cases, wined and dined) by other institutions while at the same time successfully recruit high-impact faculty.

“Iowa State University and the College of Agriculture operate in a very competitive world in terms of retaining and recruiting the very best faculty,” said Dean of Agriculture Wendy Wintersteen, who worked with a team on Robert Brown’s retention. “Often collaborators have insight to one of our key faculty who would fit into their university’s program very well. Or, they know them by reputation. They’ve gotten into the practice of going out and cherry picking.”

When that happens, there is a scramble for resources to create a retention package – a salary increase, possibly a commitment of more space or equipment. The intent is to counter an offer already on the table, or, as in Brown’s situation, prevent an interview from ever taking place.

In Robert Brown’s case, his retention involved moving a whole initiative forward, one with statewide interest. In just four days, Wintersteen secured $1 million from
the Iowa Farm Bureau Federation that would support the operation of the Bio-economy Initiative. Commitments were made to support endowed chairs and new faculty lines in the program. And the Colleges of Engineering and Agriculture agreed to dedicate a wing in the new agricultural and biosystems building to the Office of Biorenewables Programs.

In the end, Brown stayed.

“From my perspective, Robert Brown’s situation brought about a tremendous opportunity for the university and the state,” said Wintersteen. “The great thing is that we were given gifts and that led to another set of gifts. More of that is going to have to happen in the future for some of these retention packages or we won’t remain competitive.”

Wintersteen, who has dealt with four faculty retentions in 2006, knows of six more on the horizon. Retention issues are not just the result of competition with other universities or industry, she said. There could be family issues. A spouse of a key faculty might need a job or want to live in another part of the country to be near aging parents.

“Sometimes we just can’t win,” Wintersteen said.

The 64 billion dollar question
Retentions come in all shapes and sizes. Two of Iowa State’s key faculty – we’ll call them Professors A and B – were sought out and offered positions with substantial salary increases and access to more resources. One of the outside institutions had actually created a position for Professor A. Professor B was made an offer by a national corporation. Even though the retention packages from Iowa State did not meet the other offers (neither of these professors expected them to, nor did they divulge the offers on the table), they stayed.

Both said it was mainly people – colleagues and students – behind their reasons for staying. Professor B mentioned that his wife and kids are happy living in
Ames and he didn’t want to uproot his family.

If highly sought-after faculty are happy elsewhere, and by definition very successful where they are, why would they come to Ames?

“That’s the 64 billion dollar question,” said Mark J. Kushner, dean of the College of Engineering. “They’re going to come because there is a vision that they don’t see elsewhere or an opportunity they don’t see elsewhere. You need to offer them something that they don’t have at their home institutions. Very often those are leadership opportunities.”

Kushner added, “You need that occasional senior hire that brings with it instant credibility, that mentoring capability, that big-picture thinking, and brings with it the ‘wow’ factor: individuals who are so accomplished that when your peers hear about it their reaction is, ‘Wow.’”

Often those people say no, at first. Persistence helps seal the deal. It did for Kushner when Iowa State recruited him, and recently in the hiring of Jim Alleman, an eminent scholar in his field, who came in as new chair of the Department of Civil, Construction, and Environmental Engineering. Alleman was on the fence about coming. He was successful, happy, and settled into his 20-year career at Purdue, but… “Mark [Kushner] was very savvy about how he pulled me through this process from ‘no’ to ‘yes.’ He convinced me that at this point in my career ISU is the perfect place for me to come.”

Kushner, like many others involved in recruiting, said that getting candidates on campus can turn the tide. “We don’t tell our story well enough. Historical mindset has been that our land-grant mission stops at the borders of Iowa, whereas in this day the land-grant mission is regional, national, international. The perception from the outside is not as positive as it should be, but we are making tremendous strides in that regard.”

Perception of the inside played a role recently for a hire in the Chemistry Department. Theresa Windus, known worldwide as one of the best computational chemists of her generation, wasn’t looking for a job when she got the phone calls from chemistry faculty encouraging her to apply.

“I was pretty happy where I was,” she said about her former position as chief scientist at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richmond, Wash. “But I really wanted to get back to basic research and have the opportunity to teach and the timing was right. It didn’t hurt that the Chemistry Department was pursuing me.”

There were other factors, too. Windus grew up in the Midwest and loves it. She did her graduate work under Mark Gordon, distinguished chemistry professor at Iowa State. The two have collaborated since 1993. That ongoing collaboration, the strength of the department, and the presence of Ames Lab helped solidify Windus’ decision.

Recruiting young faculty
Theresa Windus came to Iowa State as a full professor, but most hires are young assistant professors. It’s how Robert C. Brown started his career at Iowa State back in 1983. Of the 60 faculty hired last fall, 49 came in as tenure track or junior hires; 11 came in with tenure.

Department chairs and search committees do the nitty-gritty work of retention and recruitment. They cull out candidates for their high-impact potential – those who will rapidly rise in their area of expertise, get grants from the most prestigious and competitive institutions, get published in the best journals, and make good teachers. They’re up against a tough marketplace.

“If someone out there is really outstanding, you’re competing with Harvard and MIT, and that’s a hard battle to win. You have to think faster and be quicker than the competition,” said Jacob Petrich, Chemistry Department chair. “I try to identify people who are outstanding but not on everybody’s radar screen yet.”

Identifying candidates early is also one of Judy Vance’s strategies. The professor of mechanical engineering served her department as chair for three years, and she said she always had feelers out. “It’s often a discussion among colleagues,” she said. Her first question might be: “Do you have any exceptional Ph.D. students who are graduating in the spring?” Her second question: “Are any of them females or minorities?”

Another successful approach, said Vance, is the idea of “growing our own.” The way this works is that faculty identify promising students early in their academic careers and encourage them to obtain their Ph.D.s from other institutions. These faculty continue to keep tabs on these students, and when the students graduate they are encouraged to apply to ISU for faculty positions. If successful, these hires come to the job with a commitment to the university from day one.

The high cost of hiring
Finding the perfect candidate is one thing. Making the hire is another. Highly qualified people have options – offers from other universities of salary and start-up packages and lab space.

Start-up packages at Iowa State for chemistry, biology, and physics average about $400,000 but can go up to $1 million, depending on the research. The money helps a researcher get a lab up and running quickly with the expectation that in a few years he or she will receive competitive research grants that will more than compensate for the initial investment.

“Start-up packages are an investment in the future,” said David Oliver, associate dean in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. Oliver puts together start-up packages for incoming faculty in his college. “These young faculty members are interested in joining universities that give them the best chance of establishing nationally competitive research programs. Unfortunately, the availability of resources at Iowa State is limiting the university’s capacity to hire some of the best research faculty on the market each year.”

There are pockets of support on campus that give Iowa State an edge in competitive hires. The Plant Sciences Institute contributes dollars upfront for the hiring of new faculty members who will benefit
the PSI’s initiatives such as biorenewables and high-tech agriculture. The PSI has contributed $6 million toward the hiring of 35 faculty (and retention of eight) since 2000. The Office of Biotechnology has a faculty recruitment program and last year made awards totaling $751,000 to eight new faculty members to establish their research programs.

For many scientists, the presence of Ames Lab differentiates Iowa State from other universities. The lab gives physicists, chemists, engineers, and other researchers access to state-of-the-art equipment and facilities they otherwise wouldn’t have. For some faculty who have dual appointments, Ames Lab funds their research, freeing them from having to bring in
external grant funding.

“I think the lure of not having to worry about funding, yet still having a lot of freedom to do what I want was an attractive thing,” said Rob McQueeney, assistant
professor in physics who took a pay cut when he came to Iowa State from Los Alamos National Laboratory.

McQueeney, who has served on two search committees, added that Ames Lab makes an impression on possible future candidates. “A hard hump to get over is that there’s something good going on in Iowa. Sometimes before a person even applies we bring them out for a seminar. They look around and say, ‘Hey, they have Ames Lab here; they have a good group of scientists here doing interesting research.’”

That’s something faculty are looking for: inspiring colleagues. Alan Myers, chair of the Department of Biochemistry, Biophysics, and Molecular Biology (BBMB) calls it a positive feedback loop.

“In our experience, the thing that is most successful in recruiting new faculty at the assistant level is a preexisting vibrant group of young faculty,” Myers said. “It’s like a camaraderie and a social structure that young faculty can step into. They know they will have colleagues and compatriots who do exciting research.”

This was a primary deciding factor for Reuben Peters, assistant professor in BBMB. He had two other offers, one of which was from the University of British Columbia. “It wasn’t an easy decision,” said Peters, who pointed out that UBC is one of the top three universities in Canada. “There’s a core of dynamic young people that made Iowa State an attractive place.” Peters and his wife also liked the small town feel of Ames for bringing up their children.

The bottom line
It comes full circle. Successful recruiting leads to Iowa State making strong hires. Whether they’re early in their careers or seasoned, if a faculty member is good, other institutions and industry take note. One of the great challenges department chairs face in retaining excellent faculty are small salary increases.

Over the years, less-than-stellar pay raises make ISU faculty easy targets to outside institutions. Here are some facts: Average faculty salary increases have been below 4 percent annually since 2001. State appropriations are at the level they were in 1997. Overall, Iowa State faculty salary averages rank at or near the bottom of its Peer 11 group.

“I think if we could pay faculty a decent, competitive salary and reward them we wouldn’t have retention problems,” said Kendall Lamkey. In his first six months as interim chair of the Agronomy Depart-ment, Lamkey has had two retention issues. “You end up in this position where unless somebody gets a job offer, they don’t get a raise.”

Lamkey’s is not a lone voice. BBMB’s Alan Myers “cannibalized” a position in his department and spread the money around for salary increases. Justin R. Peters, chair of the Math Department, gave a presentation in 2005 in which he said “… the salaries of our faculty is a major issue. Due in large measure to salary issues, we have lost and are in danger of losing some of our best faculty.” The Math Department has had nine faculty resignations since 2002.

Increasing faculty salaries is one of President Geoffroy’s priorities. He said about $7 million per year over the next three years is needed just to bring faculty and staff salaries up to the mid-range of the Peer 11 comparisons.

Relief may come in the form of endowed professorships or endowed chairs, but not all departments have such dedicated funds.

The other challenge that presents itself with almost every new hire is the “two-career problem:” new faculty who come with a spouse or partner in need of a job. The retention problem could come later, if the trailing partner never finds employment. Sometimes it just pops up – a faculty member whose spouse took time off to raise children may suddenly be back on
the market.

In all of these cases, department chairs become headhunters. If the spouse/partner is in academia, chairs often go to other departments to see if there are opportunities. But it is rare for there to be an open position in a matching department in which the partner is the best candidate.

Department chairs get on the phone and call businesses off campus, too. “We put so much money into startup packages and mentoring and hiring people, we just can’t afford to lose them once they’re here,” said Judy Vance. “If both people are happy in their jobs, it’s harder for them to leave, and that’s what we want.”

Alan Myers recently found a position in the Ames/Des Moines area for a physician with an unusual specialty. While it’s a success story, he added that Iowa State could not provide him any assistance in that effort.
That may be changing. The Provost’s Office recently hired Melanie Smith, program coordinator of dual career services and diversity initiatives. “Dual career accommodation is something that every university is dealing with,” said Smith. “Iowa State is not unique in that regard.” But, she pointed out that Ames isn’t located near a major metropolitan area, like Chicago. There are also some interesting challenges in Ames. For example, while there is a nursing shortage nearly everywhere in the country, Ames is a highly educated community. There’s no nursing shortage here. In her first three months, Smith dealt with three dual career cases and has successfully placed one.

The Provost’s Office has also worked hard in the last seven years to implement a new promotion and tenure policy. The new policy has broadened the focus from scholarship as defined primarily by research to a more holistic view of what a faculty member has accomplished by also recognizing the scholarship of teaching and outreach.

And it all counts, because as Interim Provost Susan Carlson said, “The most important thing we do at the university is bring in, recruit, and keep excellent faculty. It’s at the heart of everything we do as an academic institution.”

About the Writer | Samantha Beres is a communication specialist in ISU's Office of University Relations.

Read on | A community of learners