The stain of the international economic downturn has spread worldwide, but science institutions in the United States seem to be feeling its effects more severely than those in other nations. And it is not clear whether the science portion of the $787-billion federal economic stimulus package — $10.4 billion of which is slated for the National Institutes of Health and $3 billion for the National Science Foundation — will help schools mitigate their recruitment woes (see Nature doi: 10.1038/news.2009.126; 2009).
For now, recruitment efforts are rapidly decelerating virtually across the board, as institutions struggle to expand — or, in some cases, simply maintain — their science faculties (see 'Business as usual' and 'House-bound'). It has prompted some university chancellors and provosts to nervously wonder just how long the recession's effects will last and whether their universities' core mission may start to decay.
IMAGES.COM/CORBISState universities have absorbed the hardest blow. Stony Brook University in New York had a 10% across-the-board budget cut. "As a result, we've had to restrict hiring dramatically," says provost Eric Kaler. "In a good year, we might recruit and hire a dozen tenure-track faculty in the sciences. This year, we will probably do one." Consequences could range from increased teaching loads for faculty members to fewer lab sections and specialized graduate courses. "It means," Kaler says, "that maintaining our level of excellence is more difficult."
University of Virginia vice-president Tom Skalak.T. COGGILLThe effects have been felt nationwide. Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, has cancelled or delayed recruitment at its various schools, a university spokeswoman says. Similarly, Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, in February imposed a university-wide hiring freeze (except at the university's Applied Physics Laboratory), effective until June 2010. Clemson University in South Carolina also imposed a university-wide hiring freeze in October last year.
Clemson University's cuts have already affected the university's science programmes, including reductions in the number of research animals for its agricultural programme. Teaching duties could be another casualty. Mark Schlissel, dean of biological sciences at the University of California, Berkeley, says he hopes to keep the teaching programme intact while waiting for the economy to improve. The university has significantly curtailed its recruitment efforts.
Investing in people
Where endowments are more robust, and hence interest earned on investments still healthy, outlooks are brighter. Tom Skalak, vice-president for research at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, is sanguine about a faculty recruitment slowdown of 10–20% this year. The university has other sources of revenue besides the state, including philanthropic and corporate contributions, as well as an endowment that has fared relatively well. "There's been a slowdown but we're able to hire," Skalak says.
"We're hiring ten new science faculty this year, and that's firm," says David Dolling, dean of the school of engineering and applied science at George Washington University in Washington DC. Dolling says a conservative investment strategy has protected the university's endowment from complete collapse. "Our institutional prerogative is that we are growing engineering and sciences."
Cornell University dean Peter Lepage.CORNELL UNIV. PHOTOGRAPHYPeter Lepage, dean of the college of arts and sciences at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, says his university is relatively unscathed, at least for now, thanks largely to an aggressive recruiting and hiring strategy in recent years and other funding sources besides state monies. "The size of my faculty has grown by 6% or 7%," he says. "So even if we rolled it back, we would be setting ourselves back a decade, not to the nineteenth century."
Like several other institutions that are expanding their faculties, Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts, is working to leverage its new hires by making sure they can operate across disciplines. "We might have biologists working with sociologists," says provost Stephen Director, referring to the university's multidisciplinary 'strategic initiative', which helps spread out costs as well as strengthen the university's teaching programme. "We're trying," Director says, "to build our core strengths." Northeastern University has 46 faculty positions to fill, about half of which are in basic science.
Adapt or die
At Pennsylvania State University in State College, hiring for physical-science faculty members has an emphasis on inter-disciplinarity, according to William Easterling, dean of the college of Earth and mineral sciences. "As long as we're willing to hire physical scientists who are adept at working across disciplines, then we're able to continue with our hiring," he says.
Some universities actually see the slowdown as an opportunity to collect top talent. Despite a serious endowment dip, Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is seeking more than 50 new faculty, including science posts, said president Drew Faust in an announcement to alumni. Faust said that recruitment has slowed after a number of years of faculty growth, but that the university will continue to "plan for intensified efforts in select areas of academic priority".
Although Tufts University in Boston, Massachusetts, has put some faculty searches on hold, it is actively recruiting 52 faculty members, some of whom are in the sciences, according to spokeswoman Kim Thurler. "We see opportunities to attract outstanding faculty," she says.
A prolonged downturn could diminish any sense of optimism, however. "One year is not enough to hurt," says Steve Halperin, dean of the college of computer, mathematical and physical sciences at the University of Maryland in College Park. "But over a period of multiple years, if there's a significant [faculty] decrease, then I'm looking at a future with fewer faculty, and that will change a lot of how we do business." Halperin is expecting to hire two or three faculty members this year, down from a high of seven or eight during a good year.
Some predict even more dire consequences. An extended downturn could affect "new thinking, new ideas, new life in the nation's graduate programmes", says Robert Sowell, vice-president for programmes and operations at the Council of Graduate Schools in Washington DC. "The United States' position relative to the rest of the world could start slipping," he says. "I don't think this is a situation we can't recover from, but the real concern is our global competitiveness."
Business as usual
In the United States, university recruitment is limping along, largely as a result of recession-induced shrinking endowments and dwindling state coffers. But some other countries' science programmes are not yet suffering the same fate. "So far, it's business as usual," says a spokesperson for the University of Oxford, UK.
University of Exeter deputy vice-chancellor Janice Kay (left) and University of Toronto vice-provost Edith Hillan.J. GUATTOJ. FFOULKES/UNIV. EXETERThe University of Exeter, also in Britain, is recruiting 29 science faculty members, according to Janice Kay, a deputy vice-chancellor. Targeted disciplines include climate change, extrasolar planets, functional materials, systems biology and translational medicine. "We are recognizing a very severe recession," she says, "but we're not going to be diverted from our mission of expanding first-class research at Exeter."
Germany's University of Kiel is insulated by virtue of an agreement with the state of Schleswig-Holstein that guarantees it will receive five years of funding, some of which is devoted to recruitment, according to Susanne Schuck-Zöller, head of the university's communications. And the downturn has not affected scientist recruitment at the country's Max Planck institutes. "Our budget has not been pruned," says Felicitas von Aretin, head of science communication.
Nor has science-faculty recruitment faltered at the University of Toronto in Canada, although the university isn't hiring recklessly. "Divisions are being a bit more cautious," says Edith Hillan, vice-provost for academic affairs, noting that tuition revenues and federal funding continue to be strong. "If there's no absolute need to hire, then they're making the decision to wait another year."
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House-bound
Some US universities report that recruitment has been hampered by more than budget woes. The wider implications of the recession have hit potential recruits and affected their ability to accept positions. William Easterling, dean of the college of Earth and mineral sciences at Pennsylvania State University in State College, says some candidates, for example, have declined offers because they can't sell their homes. "Faculty at all levels, from junior to senior, are finding it very, very difficult to accept our offers because they cannot divest themselves from their current living arrangements," Easterling says. "They can't sell their houses — especially if they're from an area hard hit by the sub-prime mortgage market."
The downturn threatens to exacerbate the notorious 'two-body' problem — handling a partner's job needs as well as the recruit's. Spouses of recruits are baulking at leaving their current position if the recruiting university can't offer them a job. Recently, Easterling says, Pennsylvania State University extended an offer to a petroleum engineer at a Canadian university. The engineer seemed receptive. But he soon revealed that he could not sell his home, and that his wife, a pharmacist, was concerned about finding a new job in State College. "He turned us down," says Easterling.
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