Universities are currently in the process of change and adaptation to shifting expectations that for example include closer engagement with businesses and increased facilitation of entrepreneurship among faculty and graduates. By supporting academic entrepreneurship, universities can address these expectations whilst also becoming more…

Establishing interdisciplinary academic departments has been a common response to the challenge of addressing complex problems. However, the assumptions that guide the formation of such departments are rarely questioned. Additionally, the designers and managers of interdisciplinary academic departments in any field of endeavour struggle to set an…

The use of a robust statistical technique to implement a decentralized faculty allocation procedure at a medium size public university is discussed. The least median of squares (LMS), a regression technique introduced by Rousseeuw, was used instead of the usual least sum of squares, or least squares. The LMS technique was used to assist in the…

The Program for Faculty Study in a Second Discipline at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign was designed to encourage interdisciplinary activity among faculty with tenure or on the tenure track. Faculty may request released time for the purpose of enlarging the range of their knowledge by a study of disciplines other than those in their…

A model from the occupational sociology literature is used to examine how the interactions of the environmental characteristics of academic departments and the personal characteristics of chairmen are related to the job satisfaction and career intentions of chairmen. (LBH)

The response of faculty and department to dramatic increases in black student enrollment is explored. Faculty background, characteristics, attitudes, contact, and climate of the department are related to the self-reported ways in which faculty have altered teaching, curriculum, and personal interaction with blacks, and their commitment to…

When institutional personnel assess faculty research performance, they should consider the extent to which the institution rewards research, ways to encourage faculty to be productive, criteria for evaluating research performance, and the specific steps useful in reviewing research performance within academic units. (Author/MSE)

An approach to obtain disciplinary specific salary information for the institution of higher education budget process by mid-winter is considered. The approach involves using current year institutional mean salaries and prior year relative average salaries by academic discipline to provide "current" salary comparisons by academic…

While department and program quality rankings could be based on such factors as how well the faculty teach, advise students, and perform service roles, in practice most rankings measuring achievement in graduate departments have been based on faculty research performance of various kinds. (Author/MSE)

Diplomacy and political sophistication are as important as sound data and thorough review in the faculty layoff process. Distinguishing characteristics of institutions and departments affected by retrenchment and reasons for retrenchment are discussed, along with institutional research policies needed regarding release of data. (Author/LB)

The influence of institutional and departmental cultures on the relationship between college teaching and research is discussed, and suggestions for assessing these factors and nurturing a positive relationship between them are made. Approaches include making reward systems more equitable, strengthening administrative leadership, encouraging…

This paper reports on the development and testing of a system dynamics model of the departmental deployment of instructional resources at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. A model was developed using the Stella II computer software package. The model describes describes how departments keep student enrollments, number of course sections, and…

Measures of income and salary inequality used by economists were examined and applied against 1984-1985 faculty salary data. Attention was directed to salary inequality at each academic rank, as well as female-male inequality. The following measures were used: Lorenz Curve-Gini Coefficient, coefficient of variation, Theil's Index, and Atkinson's…

Based on Barker's Manning Theory, the behavioral and attitudinal consequences of participation in undermanned settings were examined among university faculty. Faculty from the four smallest (undermanned) and four largest liberal arts departments at Central Connecticut State College were surveyed regarding their academic activities and their…

Conclusions one would make from looking at average faculty salaries in a specific department were compared with those conclusions evolving from a regression analysis of the same salaries. The standard salary study does little more than report the average salary associated with each faculty rank within each department, while a regression study…