CAUSES OF "TURNOVER" AMONG COLLEGE FACULTIES

BY HUGO DIEMER, B.A., M.E.,

Professor of Industrial Engineering, Pennsylvania State College; Formerly Superintendent, National Motor Vehicle Company; Production Manager, Goodman Manufacturing Company, and Consulting Engineer.

When we look at the stupendous labor turnover in manufacturing establishments operating under traditional employment systems whose turnover is in some instances as high as 500 per cent a year, it would seem at first sight that an academic turnover of 40 per cent per annum is evidence of much better conditions in educational organizations than exist in industry. When we investigate the subject a little further, however, and reflect that the usual term of employment in colleges is for the academic year, and that all of the precedents and ethics of the profession are against changes during the academic year, we realize that the problem is a somewhat different one. We need also to bear in mind that the instructor in his relation to his students occupies a position analogous to that of a foreman or department head in industry, and that a change in faculty personnel of 40 per cent per annum finds its analogy in a change of foremen and department heads in industry of 40 per cent. The average cost of changing an employe in industry has been determined to range from $50 to $200, the subdivisions of this expense being:

(a) Cost of hiring

(b) Cost of teaching the new workman

(c) Decreased production by the new workman

(d) Work spoiled by the new employe

COST OF TURNOVER OF INSTRUCTORS ITEMIZED

It has been estimated that if we take into consideration municipal, state and federal appropriations and income from private endowments, as well as the money spent by the student himself, a fair cost for academic training is $1.00 per recitation hour per student. Assuming that the average instructor handles twelve hours of work per week (most schedules being rather above than

below this figure), and that there are twenty-five students in each class, the average instructor would handle 300 student hours per week. Assuming that from thirty-three to thirty-four active weeks of work are done in the academic year, the expenditure from all sources for the instruction by the average instructor would represent a total outlay of approximately $10,000 per annum. If an inexperienced instructor is only half as efficient during his first year as an experienced instructor, and assuming that the experienced instructor has 80 per cent efficiency, the net loss during the first year would be 40 per cent of $10,000 or $4,000 per instructor. In a faculty of 100 instructors with a turnover of 40 per cent per year, .the total annual loss would be forty times $4,000 or $160,000 per annum of taxpayers' or parents' money. These figures take into account only the direct loss. The indirect loss is immeasurable since it represents the failure to develop potential economic and social efficiency in the student.

REASONS FOR CHANGE OF EDUCATIONAL WORK

The principal reasons for changing given by various men who have left educational work for other fields are as follows:

1. Insufficient pay

2. Insufficient opportunities for promotion

3. Their educational experience answered its purpose, namely that of a stepping stone

4. Artificial atmosphere

5. Too wide a variety of activities demanded

The reasons given by various department heads as impelling them to encourage men to accept outside positions are as follows:

1. No future for the man in teaching, even though he was competent

2. The man could not get along with students

3. The man could not get along with his associates

4. Poor teacher

5. Unfit for the organization

It is interesting to reflect what improvement in efficiency might be accomplished by approaching the problem in the same manner in which the employment managers have approached that of labor turnover. The employment manager considers:

1. The sources of supply and methods of securing new men

2. Methods of training and developing new men

3. Methods to be adopted to retain all promising men

SOURCES OF SUPPLY OF TEACHERS

With regard to sources of supply for academic teachers these may be enumerated as:

(a) Personal inquiries made by presidents, deans and department heads at educational and professional conventions. Joining various educational and professional associations has been frequently recommended to young instructors with the confidential statement that the conventions of such associations constitute quite an employment exchange. In fact in many of such conventions. this by-product is more important than the main occasion, so far as many of the visitors are concerned.

(b) The second source of supply is letters of inquiry, addressed to college professors asking nominations from their acquaintanceship among alumni or instructors, and followed by personal interview.

(c) The third source of supply is advertisement in educational, professional or trade journals, followed by correspondence and interviews.

(d) The fourth source of supply is the teachers' or professional employment agencies.

While the cost of hiring an ordinary laborer in an industrial employment bureau may be as low as 50 cents to $1.00 per man, it is evident that when we calculate the cost of the time, correspondence and traveling expenses of higher officials in educational work in filling a vacancy, the total is apt to run not much below $50 per position to be filled.

METHODS AND STANDARDS OF SELECTION

After having considered the sources of supply, let us consider methods and standards of selection.

Professor H. Wade Hibbard, head of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Missouri, has listed 209 activities of a professor. He has boiled these down for a member of an engineering faculty to 84, as follows:

Various department heads will lay emphasis in varying stress on certain of these activities, and measure candidates' acceptability by their fitness as they see it in such of these activities as they deem most important. Some of the activities listed require an executive type of mind, some a promotive type, some an accounting type, some an analytical type, some a judicial type, some a generalizing, and some a detailist type of mind. Not only is the range of mental requirements so great that no single individual can meet them, but the temperamental variations are equally wide. Success in some of these activities demands a strong vital temperament; in others a quick, nervous, energetic temperament is required; others require a calm, phlegmatic temperament, and still others a sympathetic, emotional temperament.

Assuming that the candidate's mental equipment and temperament are satisfactory, he must still pass the tests of good build, pleasing address, individual personality, poise, readiness in speech and acceptability as a public speaker. The last named ability may have to vary from capacity for plain straightforward practical talks free from histrionic attempts and artifices so as to meet the demands of audiences composed of practical men in commerce or industry on the one hand, to a highly histrionic type, well versed in all the arts of sophistry to meet the requirements of so-called more cultured audiences.

Finally we must measure well the applicant's ability to develop interest and enthusiasm and to impart information in such a way that it is not merely a filling-in process, but also a drawing-out and developing of the student. This is more a process of prospecting than direct measurement, to apply a geologist's analogy. Still we can assume that when certain other elements exist which we can measure there is a likelihood of teaching ability being present.

As we look over our long list of activities, however, let us bear in mind the scarcity of the all-around man, if he exists at all. So long as our colleges have not adopted the principles of scientific management as they relate to functional control, we can at least apply them departmentally, since in most colleges the department head is the employment manager, his nominations being subject usually only to confirmation by higher officials. In a department numbering say ten men, it would be possible to assign a selection of eight or nine of Mr. Hibbard's functions outside of direct teaching