Recruiting, Hiring and Retaining Faculty

Contributed by Amanda Holland-Minkley, ahollandminkley@washjeff.edu

Institutional and departmental context

• Institution Name: Washington and Jefferson College
• Location: Washington, PA USA
• Student body size: 1400
• Degree(s) offered: BA Computing and Information Studies
• Department/major name: Department of Computing and Information Studies
• Number of contributing faculty: 4 tenure lines
• Number of majors annually: 10-15

Facilitation

Are you willing to facilitate this discussion? Yes

Are there any others whom you would recommend as potential facilitators for this topic?

• If you have colleagues who plan to attend and who would like to help facilitate a discussion on this topic please list them here.

Description

Hiring and retaining faculty in academic computer science programs is a challenge at all institutions and perhaps particularly at liberal arts institutions. Graduate students may not understand the nature of these positions; for example, they may not know what a liberal arts philosophy entails, that active research takes place at liberal arts institutions, and that teaching loads can vary. This discussion will focus on collecting ideas for how to communicate about the advantages of academic positions at liberal arts institutions and opportunities for collaboration to distribute this information to candidates on or about to enter the job market.