41 Percent Faculty Overturn in 4 Years - USM Forum -- Message Board

Date: Apr 6, 2006

41 Percent Faculty Overturn in 4 Years

Date: Apr 6, 2006

It is even more disturbing if you look at the colleges that lost the faculty. Very few were from CoST. In addition, the CoST has expanded during this time at the expense of the other colleges. From the beginning this was stated as SFT's plan to move resources to those programs that can bring in the big bucks. Great for business--Bad for a University.

Date: Apr 6, 2006

It would also be interesting to compare these years to the same number of years just prior to Thames assuming the Presidency if that data is readily available.

Date: Apr 6, 2006

Oldtimer,

Those numbers are way low. They only reflect names reported to the message board. A couple of years ago at a PUC meeting the number reported by Russ Willis for the previous year was well in excess of 100, something like 110. The total loss is probably closer to 50% at this point.

The total losses for this year are likely to be much fewer than previous years because of the fished out pond effect. For personal, financial, or professional reasons, there aren't many mobile people left. The next big departure will come when the PERS slaves leave.

Date: Apr 7, 2006

Please keep in mind that many of the faculty on the retired list not only did so to escape the reign of terror; but many left to go to other jobs in other states and now receive a salary plus PERS retirement including the 13th month check. I hear that most of very happy in their new positions.

Date: Apr 7, 2006

Flounder wrote:

Oldtimer,Those numbers are way low. They only reflect names reported to the message board. A couple of years ago at a PUC meeting the number reported by Russ Willis for the previous year was well in excess of 100, something like 110. The total loss is probably closer to 50% at this point.The total losses for this year are likely to be much fewer than previous years because of the fished out pond effect. For personal, financial, or professional reasons, there aren't many mobile people left. The next big departure will come when the PERS slaves leave.

Flounder, your comment is well-taken, and no doubt accurate. As I mentioned in my first post, I started this by trying to find out "how many of the people on babbs list and later cece's list, are faculty?" to separate instructional losses from administrative, athletic, and staff losses.

If anyone has better lists than those posted on this board, I'm sure this would be welcome. At the very least, my estimate of 41 percent is a minimum estimate of the faculty departure during the Thames Reign.

Date: Apr 7, 2006

I think the situation has deteriorated to the point where it would be best if all faculty members left and the university started anew. I urge all discontented faculty members to submit their resignation effective end of summer term 2006.

Date: Apr 7, 2006

Personel manager wrote:

I think the situation has deteriorated to the point where it would be best if all faculty members left and the university started anew. I urge all discontented faculty members to submit their resignation effective end of summer term 2006.

Personnel actually has two ns...and isn't being used much these days. Human Resource Management is the preferred terminology. But thanks for your observation.

Date: Apr 7, 2006

I'm not entirely sure "41% over 4 years" is especially accurate, since the attrition you're citing is cumulative & doesn't account for longitudinal changes in the original population, i.e., of the original group 4 years ago, some quit & have been replaced, so if we use a cumulative figure for the numerator (number of positions lost) shouldn't we be adding in all replacement hires to the denominator (original population)?

Taken strictly as cumulative, believe it or not, 40% turnover in 4 years in the education sector is entirely in line with the approximate 10% annual turnover reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

A better question might be, "Of the faculty in 2002, how many left?" And a follow-up would be, "Of those who left, how many were replaced with someone less experienced, or were replaced with an adjunct or temp position, or weren't replaced at all?"

I'm not disagreeing per se with the assertion that turnover at USM may be inordinately high, but it would be useful to see some comparative (national or regional) figures for faculty turnover.

Date: Apr 7, 2006

Personel manager wrote:

I think the situation has deteriorated to the point where it would be best if all faculty members left and the university started anew. I urge all discontented faculty members to submit their resignation effective end of summer term 2006.

You win the prestigious "Goofiest Post of the Century" award. Would you happen to be a USM administrator or used car dealer? It would make much more sense for 10 administrators to resign than for 500 faculty to do so. That may very well come to pass next year.

Date: Apr 7, 2006

Invictus wrote:

I'm not disagreeing per se with the assertion that turnover at USM may be inordinately high, but it would be useful to see some comparative (national or regional) figures for faculty turnover.

invictus Dahling - Historically, faculty turnover has been about 10% (50-60). For the past three years it it seems to have been around 15% (80-100). For obvious reasons, good data have been in short supply.

Date: Apr 7, 2006

I tried to count the number of faculty opening listed on the USM website: I made it at 61. That's 61 openings for faculty from Instructor to Full Professor. If the number of faculty at the time of the first no confidence vote was, roughly, 540, simple division reveals that 61 is 11.3% of that number.

Does this number reveal anything? Does this mean that 11.3% of existing faculty lines are either empty or about to be, ie. through retirement or attrition? That's about 1 in every 9.

Date: Apr 7, 2006

Whatever the number, the place is a shell of what it once was. Increasingly, USM reminds me of a zombie institution, it's dead but doesn't know it. It sort of staggers along on the inertia of a couple of hundred (maybe) older faculty and a skeleton crew of demoralized staff. The young are just building vita for their next job with no real attachment to the place (can't blame them). Whatever the percentages or turnover rate is, the real measure of the turnover is the number of faculty and staff that are enthused about being at USM. Unfortunately the turnover has been high morale and even a degree of esprit de corps to a level of morale you can't find with a microscope. The only upside I see daily is the high percentage of older faculty still doing a good job in the class with no hope of reward save perserving some sense of integrity.

Date: Apr 8, 2006

Another consideration on those vacancies is that many positions have already been filled by April. They would not be on the employment site any longer.

Date: Apr 8, 2006

From the archives: HA, 4/19/2004:

USM's challenge: Fill 112 jobs
31 faculty members plan retirement

USM departures since 2000

2004: 50 faculty leaving (as of March 30), 31 have filed retirement papers

2003: 94 faculty left, 35 retired

2002: 104 faculty left, 23 retired

2001: 58 faculty left, 29 retired

2000: 32 faculty left, 19 retired

The University of Southern Mississippi has a higher number of faculty vacancies to fill this year than it has had in the past four years, according to university records....

... "The vacancies could have been caused by financial or budgetary reasons, a lower number of students in a specific program or perhaps an extended search for a quality person," Mader said.

Even in the face of the openings, USM officials have maintained that too much is being made of attracting new faculty and controversy surrounding the suspensions with pay of two tenured professors on March 5 by President Shelby Thames.

Nevertheless, the turnover in faculty has grown since Thames' took office in 2002. The number of vacancies between 2000 and 2003 tripled....

... Mader referred calls about the faculty vacancies and recruitment efforts to Provost Tim Hudson, who said he did not have exact figures on how many of the 112 positions that were open in January have been filled....

... While administrators continue to bring job candidates to the Hattiesburg campus, what is surprising to an official of the American Association of University Professors is the fact that the university had more than 100 vacancies.

"That is an extraordinary number," said Robert Kreiser, senior program officer with the AAUP....

... Pennsylvania college professor Mary Waters turned down a position in the English department's Gulf Coast campus.

Waters was considering two positions, including the one at USM that she preferred.

"In the process of negotiations, it became clear that the issue with the (Thames administration) not only created a sense of insecurity about the future of the university, but revealed that the mindset USM follows is one of a business," Waters said.

"They are trying to get the courses taught at the most economical level possible without real concern for quality," she added....

Date: Apr 8, 2006

From the archives: HA, 4/20/2004:

'Vacancy' issue merits attention

USM

Whatever the cause (or causes) of the high number of faculty vacancies at the University of Southern Mississippi, this much is clear: The university must dramatically improve its ability to recruit and retain faculty.

The high number of faculty vacancies at the University of Southern Mississippi is both problematic and instructive.

Problematic because so many vacancies - more than 100 - have the very real potential to undermine the university's chief mission: Educating students.

Informative because the high number of vacancies strongly suggests there are underlying causes that must be addressed to remedy the problem.

The challenge before USM officials is two-fold: 1) Determine why so many faculty positions remain open; and 2) Redouble efforts to fill them.

Between 2000 and 2003, the number of vacancies tripled at USM. In 2004 (through March 30), 50 faculty members have announced they are leaving. Of this number, 31 have filed retirement papers.

According to Lisa Mader, spokeswoman for the university, "The vacancies could have been caused by financial or budgetary reasons, a lower number of students in a specific program or perhaps an extended search for a quality person."

Each of these may be a legitimate explanation....

... Whatever the cause or causes of USM's numerous faculty vacancies, this much is clear: The university must dramatically improve its ability to recruit and retain faculty.

Unless this downward trend is reversed - and soon - USM's ability to educate students will almost certainly deteriorate.

Date: Apr 8, 2006

Invictus wrote:

I'm not entirely sure "41% over 4 years" is especially accurate, since the attrition you're citing is cumulative & doesn't account for longitudinal changes in the original population, i.e., of the original group 4 years ago, some quit & have been replaced, so if we use a cumulative figure for the numerator (number of positions lost) shouldn't we be adding in all replacement hires to the denominator (original population)?

Taken strictly as cumulative, believe it or not, 40% turnover in 4 years in the education sector is entirely in line with the approximate 10% annual turnover reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

A better question might be, "Of the faculty in 2002, how many left?" And a follow-up would be, "Of those who left, how many were replaced with someone less experienced, or were replaced with an adjunct or temp position, or weren't replaced at all?"

I'm not disagreeing per se with the assertion that turnover at USM may be inordinately high, but it would be useful to see some comparative (national or regional) figures for faculty turnover.

I wasn't sure what "turnover" is, so I consulted a dictionary. Webster’s indicates that turnover means the number of persons hired within a period to replace those leaving or dropped from a workforce. Alternatively, it can refer to the ratio of this number to the number in the average force maintained.

As a rather extreme case, if the entirety of the USM faculty left at the end of this semester and not a single replacement was hired, the turnover rate between spring 2006 and fall 2006 should be zero. Since turnover does not take into account the loss of positions, it is not a very useful measure of what has gone on here under Thames. And I agree that it might be instructive to compare the turnover here at USM with that of faculty turnover at similar universities. While an annual turnover of 10% might be splendid in the fast food bidness, my guess is that it is very high in the university setting.

Finally, I think you are correct when you suggest that simply calculating the percentage of the faculty circa 2002 who remain is a more relevant exercise.

Date: Apr 19, 2006

Yes, turnover involves replication. That is not happening. The lines do not get replaced, the tuition goes up, there is pork surplus somewhere, and S and T keeps on ticking...

In a way it is just outsourcing of all those jobs you don't really want to fund, the ones nobody wants to do so you can pay even less to the desperate, and the ones people love so you can pay even less...

Date: Apr 19, 2006

From the IHL:

630+ fewer filled staff positions since 2003

0 fewer filled faculty positions since 2003

Date: Apr 19, 2006

Outsourcing is the reason for less staff jobs. The figure for the faculty is misleading for various reasons.

Date: Apr 19, 2006

Outsourcing wrote:

The figure for the faculty is misleading for various reasons.

Can you explain how and why? Thanks.

Date: Apr 20, 2006

Trollicus wrote:

deleted

Verily, this caitiff Trollicus, that doth ever hear yet never learn the truth about the worth and innocence of the long-vindicated professor Stringer, and yea, doth now even multiply his beastly ignorance by multiplying targets for it, this Trollicus, I say, doth remind me of that varlet Gryll, and mine own Palmer's advice: Let Gryll be Gryll, and have his hoggish mind.

Date: Apr 20, 2006

Edmund Spenser's ghost wrote:

Verily, this caitiff Trollicus, that doth ever hear yet never learn the truth about the worth and innocence of the long-vindicated professor Stringer, and yea, doth now even multiply his beastly ignorance by multiplying targets for it, this Trollicus, I say, doth remind me of that varlet Gryll, and mine own Palmer's advice: Let Gryll be Gryll, and have his hoggish mind.

Good English, wrong century.

(What did you say??)