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CAMBRIDGE, MASS. Harvard University is planning a major expansion of its engineering program, including a 67 percent increase in the size of the faculty and the possible establishment of a […]

Universities in the United Kingdom are for the first time making use of the services of professional headhunters in order to fill positions such as faculty heads and research professorships. Previously these services had only been used to recruit vice-chancellors but as the market has become more competitive institutions are having to fight to secure the best people.

Three-quarters of universities in London, UK, are having problems recruiting and retaining staff, with only four of 27 higher education institutions in the city reporting no staffing problems, according to a report by Incomes Data Services. The findings come as unions have expressed their anger at an offer made by employers to increase the cost-of-living allowance for academics living in London by UKPd7/month.

Royal Holloway, University of London, launched an UKPd4 mil recruitment drive early in an attempt to pre-empt similar exercises by other universities and to maximise their opportunities of attracting the top academic talent. Royal Holloway launched the recruitment drive by placing an advert in the Times Higher on 19 December 2003 in which it listed 27 new research-led roles as part of a 'major strategic investment'.

An analysis of the factors that universities take into account when looking to recruit new faculty members. Ideally what university departments want to create is a unified group of people that are producing high-quality research, so when they are recruiting they will tend to look for people that are good researchers but who also can demonstrate an ability to work as part of a team.

Over 100 new chairs are being created by universities in the UK in a multimillion-pound restructuring drive designed to secure them top marks in the next research assessment exercise. Some institutions are believed to be offering salaries of more than UKPd70,000/yr in order to attract the best people.

The latest public college in California is the University of California, Channel Islands. Its use of the Internet to recruit professors, its small class sizes and other innovations are discussed.

The United Kingdom's drive to get more students into higher education is creating staffing problems at colleges and universities. These institutions must recruit and find money to pay new staff while trying not to dilute academic quality.

The University of La Laguna (ULL) in the Canary Islands is being sued by The Spanish Association for the Advancement of Science and Technology (AACTE) for advertising 80 professorial posts in August when many Spanish citizens are on holiday. The Association argues that the university has acted deliberately to favor the appointment of local candidates. However the university claims to be making use of administrative resources that would otherwise be underused.

April is the crudest month for college English departments, and not just because we're fans of T. S. Eliot (yes, he still gets taught, if occasionally--Shakespeare, too, if we can [...]

* TENURE-TRACK FACULTY--Criminal Justice and Criminology/Corrections/Probation and Parole Metropolitan State College of Denver Since opening its doors in 1965, Metropolitan State College of Denver has evolved into one of the [...]

The Department of Teacher Education seeks candidates for the position of Assistant Professor of Reading/Literacy, effective August 2008. Responsibilities: Teaching developmental reading to college age students, teaching literacy related classes [...]

Research indicates that teacher preparation is a leading factor in teacher effectiveness and student learning. The International Reading Association is partnering with the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education [...]

John D. Kubiatowicz, a graduate student in electrical engineering and computer science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), will begin a tenure-track professorship in the same fields at the University of California at Berkeley during the fall of 1997. Kubiatowicz's broad contributions to the architectural design, hardware and software of the Alewife multiprocessor at MIT earned him the position at Berkeley. He has authored, coauthored and contributed to a number of articles on the Alewife project. Kubiatowicz's other interests include studying physics and playing the piano.

Nepotism is a major problem in higher education in Denmark where academic appointments tend to be made on the basis of candidates' ability to contribute to a congenial working environment rather than on their ability to contribute to their field of research. Positions at Danish universities are rarely advertised in international publications and external candidates are frequently passed over in favour of less well-qualified internal ones. Several cases of plagiarism and the manipulation of scientific data have also been reported in natural sciences departments at Danish universities.

The recruitment of husband-and-wife academics Ulrich and Elizabeth Beck by the University College Cardiff illustrates the difficulty of recruiting highly talented professionals and the problems faced by academic couples to maintain their relationships. Faculties that need to attract internationally-renowned academics must offer attractive packages, which can include finding employment for spouses. The growing trend for institutions to attract star names has its roots in the US, where joint packages are becoming more common.

Some of the country's top universities are finding it difficult to hire more African-American faculty members because of fierce competition from other learning institutions. Moreover, some universities have not been successful in keeping the few black professors they have in their faculty staffs because many are enticed by attractive job offers from other schools. Another factor behind the lesser number of black teachers is the lack of state funds. The number of Hispanic professors has also declined while Asian teachers are increasing in number.