UNLV hit with loss of senior professors

Jennifer Knight

Tuesday, Nov. 13, 2001 | 9:39 a.m.

University of Nevada, Las Vegas has lost dozens of senior professors to retirement at a time when a statewide budget crunch allows only enough money to hire teachers with lesser academic credentials to replace them.

By hiring younger, less experienced teachers to fill the 48 vacant positions, UNLV could be slowed in its effort to improve the school's academic standing.

School officials had hoped to hire more professors who have established national and international reputations, but to make those hires, UNLV must rely less on state money and more on private funding.

"What we need are endowed chairs," said James Frey, dean of UNLV's liberal arts department. "This year all of the deans have asked the (UNLV) Foundation to make this a priority."

UNLV, which has about 23,000 students, thus far has only two endowed chairs (sponsored teaching positions).

UNLV recently received a higher academic ranking from the Carnegie Foundation, and university President Carol Harter has said she wants to bring in more seasoned professors and endowed chairs to keep the university headed toward becoming the state's "crowning jewel."

However, 36 of the 48 teaching positions are being offered as junior level professor positions only, a classification that is two levels below full professor, UNLV administrators said.

"Strategically, we would like to have a certain amount of senior level professors to lead certain groups," said Raymond Alden, UNLV's provost. "We're in a little less flexible position. We see this as a slight plateau."

Typically professors come with national and often international reputations in their respective fields. Getting well-known professors to sign to a university often propels the school to national prominence.

"If we could have our way, we would create endowed chairs to be held by international superstars, including an occasional additional Nobel Laureate in fields such as economics or physics or other areas that might catapult us into the national limelight," Harter said in last month's State of the University speech.

But this round of hires allows very little room to do that. UNLV is operating with only 81 percent of its normal budget, reducing the university's hiring options. Because of budget cuts, the university recently announced a hiring freeze. All positions available now are hold-overs from last year, Alden said.

Meanwhile, longtime professors who have built their tenure and reputation at UNLV, have been slowly leaving for the past two years. According to 1999-2000 exit interviews, 32 percent of those who left cited retirement as a reason.

Retirement is on the rise in the rest of the nations universities as well. Teachers hired during the 1960's after Congress expanded its higher education budget are now vacating their positions, Frey said.

"We are just at that point in life as a university where the people who were with us at the beginning are now reaching retirement," Alden said.

UNLV is also losing people to other universities who offer more money and better benefits, according to the exit survey. And recruitment is proving to be an equally difficult task, Frey said.

"I've had in the last year at least one faculty member leave because they have a partner who has gotten a position someplace else, and they decided to follow them," Frey said. "It affects the other side of the equation too when you are trying to hire people."

Frey said it is common for a prospective employee to ask him to find their partner a job.

"If the sociologist comes here and is hired, what are the options for their spouse who has a Ph.D. in Chemistry?" Frey said.

According to Jane Nichols, Nevada's higher education chancellor, the financial picture isn't likely to get better, and she says she is already bracing for more cuts for Nevada's colleges and universities.

Harter, who could not be reached for comment Monday, has already recognized the limitations of state funding and has made it her goal to secure private funding for teachers.

In the meantime, UNLV will be filling the available posts with junior staff.

"I'd like to see us hire more senior staff, but that takes money, and we just don't have it," Frey said.

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