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C H A P T E R N I N E Pathways to the Professoriate We have analyzed through many different lenses the developments and trends that have affected the quality of academic life. Some of those developments , moderately improved compensation, for instance, presumably have made the prospect of an academic career marginally more attractive (chapter 8). Other developments, such as the shrinkage in the proportion of academic appointments that serve as the gateway to traditional, relatively secure academic careers, may discourage a person from choosing “the life academic” (chapter 7). In addition to such speculations about the attractiveness of academic careers, a stream of survey data helps to identify the areas of satisfaction and dissatisfaction that faculty members express about their work and their careers; sometimes an item asks specifically whether faculty members would choose an academic career if they had the opportunity to make that choice again (see especially chapter 5). And, more to the present point, an occasional survey item directly asks faculty members whether they would encourage their students to seek an academic career. In this chapter we focus on what is known about the attractiveness of academic careers to talented young people contemplating their career options. More fundamentally, we try to determine whether probative evidence exists that bears on this complicated question. Can we determine whether adequate numbers of very talented young people are choosing academic careers? And for that matter, by what criteria would one judge whether new entrants to academic careers are better qualified than, or as well qualified as, their predecessors? These are hardly new concerns; they may be as old as universities themselves . It is perhaps worth noting that a century ago this issue was raised in terms of needing to avoid hiring candidates who too often were “irredeemably mediocre” (Veysey, 1965, p. 178). There are formidable obstacles to setting forth academic-career qualifications . To begin with, the qualities that are susceptible to measurement—those that are quantifiable—likely are not so important as intangibles such as dedication , a love of learning, a capacity and a commitment to reach culturally diverse learners, and so on; these attributes cannot be measured readily—if at all. Then there is the question, even more difficult to answer, of whether among the recruits to the academy there are some, at least, who have the intellectual gifts and creativity to make important intellectual breakthroughs: for instance, fresh insights in interpreting some aspect of society (perhaps a “new paradigm,” as academics are fond of saying), or rearranging molecules in some unprecedented but consequential way. And more fundamental still are the “so what” questions: Does it really make a difference whether the academy attracts very strong new entrants? Do we actually know that students would learn more and that the prospects for “advancing the frontiers of knowledge” are served better—not to mention significantly better—by faculty members who appear by conventional indicators to be better qualified? So a whole tangle of questions arise that challenge anyone who attempts to assess whether higher education is getting its “fair share” of highly talented young people. There are no clear answers. Ambiguities permeate the issues, and so it must be conceded at the outset that the kinds of evidence marshaled here will not settle the issue one way or another. Yet there are some ways in which relevant data can be brought to bear. It is our contention that the type of evidence we proffer sheds at least some light on the question, How is higher education doing in its efforts to attract to academic careers persons of high quality? Stating it more broadly (as was done two decades ago), “What do we know about the quality of persons now being attracted to academic careers?” (Bowen and Schuster, 1986, p. 201). Underlying this inquiry is the concern that the changing realities of academic work and academic careers—or, more precisely, the perceptions of those realities among persons who contemplate academic careers—may be dissuading signi ficant numbers of “prospects” from opting for such a commitment. Opinions about this issue abound. Anecdotal evidence flourishes. But efforts to systematically evaluate whether the situation is better or worse, from the perspective of the academy, are sparse. Perhaps this is so because such efforts are doomed to be suggestive at best and cannot answer definitively such complex and valueladen questions. Perhaps. But we assume otherwise: that a methodical analysis of available data, despite its inevitable...

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