Eating Our Seed Corn.

This article focuses on specific problems facing computer science departments in the United States and Canada because of severe faculty shortages. The exodus from university to industry is so great that Ph.D. faculty have grown by only 2.8 percent of the number of new Ph.D's taking academic positions. In 1975 there were 60 Ph.D., granting departments in the United States; by 1980 there were 77. Preliminary data show that 53 departments reporting had an average of 1.8 replacement positions and another 1.8 new positions to fill during 1979-80 recruiting. Each department filled an average of 2.5 of its 3.6 open positions. Mounting evidence from all quarters shows that the computer science problem is a piece of a larger national problem that seriously threatens the foundations of higher education in science and technology. It is caused by the blurring of the traditional distinction between university research and industrial research.