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ERIC Number: EJ1432203
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2024
Pages: 14
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: N/A
EISSN: EISSN-2469-9896
Importance of Undergraduate Institution Prestige in Physics Faculty Hiring Networks
Daniel Z. Grunspan; Regis Komperda; Erika G. Offerdahl; Anna E. Abraham; Sara Etebari; Samantha A. Maas; Julie A. Roberts; Suhail Ghafoor; Sara E. Brownell
Physical Review Physics Education Research, v20 n1 Article 010144 2024
Reforming the professionalization experiences of future faculty members, including their undergraduate experience, provides a possible means to create scalable change in higher education. However, this requires an understanding of where faculty undergraduate training occurs. We analyze data from 7748 tenure-line faculty members across 611 U.S. physics departments, including their undergraduate alma mater and their employer university. The resulting undergraduate professionalization network reveals a prestige hierarchy similar in strength to those previously found in hiring networks at the Ph.D. level, indicating that the road to faculty jobs begins during undergraduate admissions. Furthermore, 42% of physics faculty members earned their undergraduate degrees from institutions outside of the United States. These results reinforce the importance of institutional prestige in academia and offer a potential strategy for driving systemic change.
American Physical Society. One Physics Ellipse 4th Floor, College Park, MD 20740-3844. Tel: 301-209-3200; Fax: 301-209-0865; e-mail: assocpub@aps.org; Web site: https://journals.aps.org/prper/
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Higher Education; Postsecondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: National Science Foundation (NSF), Improving Undergraduate STEM Education (IUSE)
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: 1712188