Even as the university continues to operate under the "flexible" hiring freeze it mandated two years ago, administrators in the Schools of Arts and Sciences and Engineering are loosening their hiring practices and welcoming 30 new faculty members to the Hill this year.
In response to the economic crisis, administrators announced in the fall of 2008 that the university was enacting a so−called flexible hiring freeze, under which it would only fill positions deemed to be critical. Two years later, Tufts still remains cautious in its hiring practices, but the freeze seems to have thawed a little bit.
Among the new hires are four professors, including new Professor of Biology and Dean of Arts and Sciences Joanne Berger−Sweeney, 10 assistant and associate professors and 16 lecturers.
These figures mark an increase from last year — in which only 21 faculty members began jobs at Tufts — and a small decrease from the three academic years between 2006 and 2009. Hiring of full, assistant, and associate professors — all tenure−track positions — hovered at similar numbers over the past five years. The higher number of total new faculty this year comes largely from an increase in the number of lecturers hired.
"I think it's safe to say that we are not quite on par, but almost on par with where we've been in the past," Provost and Senior Vice President Jamshed Bharucha said.
Bharucha added that the hiring figures often vary based on the number of retirees in any given year. "It is a flexible freeze," he said. "We've always said that we would continue with significant faculty hiring."
While the freeze has not seemingly destabilized hiring practices significantly, Tufts currently finds itself faring better than a number of comparable institutions. This is due in large part to the administration's decision during the economic crisis to absorb the full impact of the endowment's decline at once, while many other schools chose to spread the loss over several years. These schools are in turn not as able to offer competitive packages to potential new faculty members.
"The university as a whole has viewed this as a strategically good moment to hire new faculty, a moment when we've been able to devote new resources to that and many other institutions have not," Executive Administration Dean of the School of Arts and Sciences Leah McIntosh said.
Bharucha agreed that Tufts finds itself less adversely affected by the financial crisis than other leading schools and has used this as a competitive edge in pursuing talented personnel.
"Even though we're being very cautious, we are also taking this opportunity to recruit some outstanding faculty," he said.
Professor of Religion Brian Hatcher is one new faculty member attracted to opportunities at Tufts. Having worked for 18 years at Illinois Wesleyan University (IWU), most recently as the chair of its religion department, Hatcher was not actively looking for another position until members of Tufts' Department of Religion approached him.
Describing the new position at Tufts as "immediately attractive" for its accompanying research opportunities, coupled with the promise of chairing the department next year, Hatcher said Tufts presented an offer that IWU could never match.
"That is, unfortunately for them … how the game gets played," he said.
Hatcher took the offer as evidence that he was filling a critical position. The administration, he said, "saw the religion department as perhaps in need of a little boost and was savvy enough to see that there are people at institutions that might be lured away."
The ability to bring in new faculty is less clear−cut for some departments. Of the 30 full−time members brought to Tufts this year, none belong to the Department of Economics. Professor Enrico Spolaore, the department chair, said that the administration allowed them to hire one new assistant professor this academic year. The department has filled the position, but the individual is pursuing a post−doctorate degree and will not start at Tufts until next September.
Spolaore was pleased to have made the hire but said the hiring freeze meant that other positions had to remain vacant for the time being.
"We were lucky that we were able to search for somebody," he said. "That said, we had asked for more positions. We have needs, so we had to postpone a search."
The Department of Economics has received the go−ahead to search for two more professors who will fill slots next year, Spolaore said.
In the interim, the department is relying on a good number of part−time faculty.
While Spolaore commended part−time workers for their caliber and teaching ability, they cannot serve as advisers or faculty committee members. "That's where you feel a bit [of] the constraints," he said.
Bharucha said the administration always receives more requests for positions than it is able to authorize. Each school's dean reviews the requests from the departments and prioritizes hiring based on the budget, academic needs and personnel opportunities, he said.
In light of the freeze, the School of Engineering has not been as quick to replace retiring faculty or to transition lecturers into more "refined" positions, according to Scott Sahagian, executive associate dean of the School of Engineering.
Still, some engineering administrators have found a way to skirt the freeze's constraints by employing so−called "professors of the practice." These non−tenured professors are leaders in their fields and are hired to bring real−world experience to the classroom. They generally work on a part−time basis and are not permanent appointments, Sahagian said.
"While we do not want to see that supplant tenured faculty, we do see it as a viable mix," he said.
