Invest in faculty

This past week, the 2013 Nobel Prizes were awarded to recipients around the world, recognizing outstanding contributions to the progress of humanity. Within the United States, the new laureates hailed from many of Duke’s peer institutions. Two came from the University of Chicago, two from Yale University, two from Stanford University, one from Harvard University, one from The University of California, Berkeley and one from the University of Southern California.

Last year was the first time a standing Duke professor won the prestigious award, and we believe that the University should build on its recent success. Duke should make fostering an environment conducive to generating scholarly achievements a high institutional priority. We propose a two-pronged approach to realizing such a goal. First, young, promising assistant and associate professors should be provided with more resources for conducting research, and second, Duke should make a concerted effort to hire leading professors from other institutions.

These two initiatives would bring broad, lasting improvements to the Duke community. With increased research funding and the presence of strong senior faculty, Duke would become a preeminent destination for post-doctorates looking to start their careers. These young professors would have a direct impact on the quality of education for undergraduate students. Also, unlike tenured faculty, non-tenured professors have a strong incentive to produce research. Increased funding and better young professors translates into rising research output and quality.

Duke would also experience a rise in desirability among students seeking a doctorate degree. These students often place a premium on the availability of high-caliber professors because dissertation advisors play such a significant role in their research. Given this, hiring star professors would not only directly raise the prominence and competitiveness of Duke scholarship, but it would also have a multiplier effect in drawing in young, aspiring professors and graduate students.

Having better faculty and more resources for them to conduct research promises to exponentially increase the quality and quantity of research output. There is an increasing marginal return for every star professor hired, and we believe that when the brightest minds in a given discipline get together, a confluence effect emerges, leading to research greater than the sum of the parts. We want to be clear, however, that we propose this initiative as a positive sum game, not a zero sum game. No resources should be diverted away from younger faculty in order to hire senior faculty. Instead, the absolute amount of resources dedicated to the faculty at Duke should be increased to allow for both the hiring of prominent senior faculty and increased support for junior faculty.

To fund this larger expenditure on faculty and research, Duke should make our two proposals a stated priority for the Duke Forward campaign. According to Duke Forward, it costs $2,500,000 to start an endowment for a full professor, and $1,500,000 for a professor of the practice. Currently, a goal for Duke Forward is to acquire $250 million to establish 100 new faculty chairs. Duke should aim not only to meet this goal, but to commit a significantly greater portion of Duke Forward donations to faculty resources and hiring initiatives.

Duke will reap long-term dividends by committing to an increased investment in our faculty. Despite the difficulty, we should muster the courage and make the leap.