Respiratory students benefit at Bellarmine

MCC project to conserve energy

Scholarly search

Herald-Leader
August 13, 2003

Respiratory students benefit at Bellarmine

Bellarmine University and the Kentucky Community and Technical College System have signed an agreement that permits students graduating from any KCTCS associate degree respiratory therapist program to apply to Bellarmine University with junior standing. Students will be able to complete the bachelor's degree in two years with 60 credit hours of additional study at Bellarmine University. For more information, call Mary Abrams at (502) 418-6786.

The Messenger
August 12, 2003

MCC project to conserve energy

"In that energy savings contract, they're going to go through all our buildings and replace our lighting with more energy-efficient lighting," said Dean of Business Affairs Ray Gillaspie. "We're guaranteed a 20 percent savings on our utilities."

The project also involves replacing boilers and hot water heaters as well as adding outdoor lighting intended to improve security.

"We have one boiler that's down," Gillaspie said. "The other, we've just tried to maintain it because we knew we were going to replace it. This will put brand new boilers in there."

The Kentucky Community and Technical College System awarded the contract to Energy Systems Group, which has offices in Evansville, Ind., and Nashville, Tenn.

ESG is completing a project at Jefferson Community College in Louisville as part of the same contract. The firm has also been completing an energy conservation project for Hopkins County Schools this summer.

The MCC work will be done primarily at the John Gray Building, Glema Mahr Center for the Arts and the two buildings on the health campus. The expense of the project will be paid back over eight years using the money saved in lower energy bills.

"We'll do approximately $13,000 of additional lighting outside," Gillaspie said. This will be installed in the back parking lot on the north campus and the parking circle in front of the Gray building.

College officials expect the project to be done by late November.

Work redoing the entrance to the north campus was recently completed.

The work was needed because 15 to 20 percent of the brick pavers on the road had cracked because the soil underneath them was letting them give, Gillaspie said. The pavers were removed and replaced with reinforced concrete.

Business First
August 11, 2003

Scholarly search
Universities use journals, Web sites, and form search teams in quest for faculty

Running a newspaper advertisement is one way, but networking at conferences and spreading the word through existing professors also have proven to be effective ways to find qualified applicants, university recruiters said. The Internet also offers opportunities for reaching interested candidates, through Web sites such as Monster.com.

And by virtue of these multiple media, universities sometimes are able to attract someone who wasn't really looking to leave a post, but happened to see an interesting job description.

That's what happened with Dr. Phil Schervish, who joined Spalding University in July 2002 as dean of the School of Social Work. He was attending the Society for Social Work and Research's 2002 conference in San Diego, recruiting for his previous employer, Howard University, a four-year college based in Washington, D.C.

He thumbed through the employment listings and check out what the competition was offering, and he noticed an advertisement for the opening at Spalding. "I wasn't looking to be a dean or to leave Howard," said Schervish, who had been an associate professor. "But the ad was attractive. It was about everything I'd been talking about for the last 26 years."

Drawn to the description of the program -- which has a focus on social justice and an integrative practice approach -- Schervish said, he went home, gathered materials and sent his information to Spalding.

Getting the word out
That scenario probably sounds ideal to anyone overseeing faculty hiring at a university. An ad placed in a specialized publication attracted a highly qualified candidate.

Dr. David Howarth, associate provost at the University of Louisville, said the school seeks advertising venues specific to particular disciplines in order reach good applicant pools. The Chronicle of Higher Education is one journal U of L uses, Howarth said. It helps that the journal is accessible via the Internet.

U of L has at least 100 positions to fill on an annual basis, Howarth said. "We hire a lot of term appointments, or faculty for one-year positions," he explained. The number of tenure positions can range from 20 to 50.

"Each department, when someone retires (or leaves), requests permission to retain the position in that department," Howarth explained. His office coordinates the search, and the dean's office and affirmative action department oversee the process.

U of L looks nationwide and worldwide for qualified faculty, Howarth said, and has drawn people from long distances to join the faculty.

Recruits have included "people from the Ivy League and a number from the Big Ten" Conference schools, Howarth said. "Literally, we have people from all over the world."

Another factor in recruitment at U of L has been the state's Research Challenge Trust Fund, or Bucks for Brains program, which matches state funds with private donations to pay for endowed professorships and support research efforts at state universities.

The program is geared to bringing rising stars in research, science and engineering to the state's universities, according to the Kentucky Office for the New Economy, www.one-ky.com.

The state legislature dictated that 70 percent of these professorships have to be in health and science, Howarth said.

Since the program's inception in 1997, U of L has established 27 chairs and two professorships through the program, said Rae Goldsmith, the university's associate vice president for communications and marketing. This does not include various support positions resulting from the new posts.

Jefferson Community College also conducts its search for professors nationwide, said Diane Calhoun-French, provost and vice president of academic and student affairs. She said the number of positions open varies from year to year.

"For most positions, we try to recruit nationally," through a journal such as The Chronicle of Higher Education, she said. But if there are only a few positions, JCC officials might just list the jobs in statewide newspapers.

"We make decisions on an annual basis," she said, depending upon retirements and demand for classes in the field.

Forming search committees
JCC's College Leadership Team works as a group to make decisions about which faculty to hire, Calhoun-French said, and then makes recommendations to the president, who also serves on the leadership team.

The Academic Affairs Office handles recruiting and advertising, Calhoun-French said. A search committee at the division level composed of faculty makes a recommendation to the dean for filling a vacancy, she said. The recommendation then goes to the provost and the president.

"We are looking for strong teachers, people who have a love of teaching and a commitment to teaching," Calhoun-French said.

Spalding University puts together a search committee for faculty openings, usually made of people in the discipline, to oversee the hunt for a new faculty member, said Dr. Steve Hardin, senior vice president of academic affairs.

The number of openings varies at Spalding, with several openings some years and very few in others, Hardin said.

The search committee coordinates the hunt, but Hardin said his office ultimately is responsible for filling positions. Funds for recruiting are included in the annual budget, which also varies.

"We try to anticipate the needs for the year," he said. Like other universities, Spalding places ads in local papers and in discipline-specific journals or publications, Hardin said.

Members from an academic unit also will travel to conferences and take advantage of networking opportunities available there to reach potential candidates, such as Dr. Schervish, Hardin said.

Filling problem positions
The search for potential candidates can be difficult when it comes to subjects that are in high demand.

Math and computer science are difficult fields for finding professors, according to Ruth Flower, director of the office of public policy and communications at the American Association of University Professors, based in Washington, D.C.

"Anything where the outside marketplace can compete well with university salaries" results in difficulty for schools trying to fill teaching posts, Flower said.

Computer science is one subject area with vacancies that Spalding has had trouble finding professors to fill, Hardin said. But difficulty filling positions varies from year to year and depends on the discipline, he said.

Spalding likes to find professors who hold a doctorate degree in the field, and during the dot-com boom, there were a lot of job opportunities for people with computer-science degrees, Hardin said.

At Indiana University Southeast, nursing, computer science and special education positions have been historically hard to fill, said Gilbert Atnip, vice chancellor of academic affairs. The university has an average of 10 to 12 openings at any time, Atnip said.

Typically, a search committee made up of faculty from the department works to fill a vacant position, Atnip said. Funds for advertising and travel are included in the university's annual budget, Atnip said.

"In the last five years, we've seen generally smaller pools of applicants across the board," Atnip said. "It's a supply and demand issue. The number of people getting advanced degrees is smaller. We require a doctorate for tenure track positions."

As with computer science, the competitive job market in other industries makes professorial posts harder to fill. For example, a nurse with a bachelor's degree can find ample opportunities for high-paying jobs, so there is not a lot of impetus to pursue an advanced degree in the field, Atnip said.

"There is competition from outside the university for people who have talent in those fields," Atnip said of nursing and computer science.

Bellarmine University has not faced such problems finding nursing faculty, said Lynn Bynum, chief human resources officer, because the dean of the Lansing School of Nursing and Health Sciences, Dr. Susan Davis, is well-networked in the state and nationally.

Bynum has noticed some trouble filling some science and mathematics positions, which she attributes to a limited number of qualified candidates with doctoral degrees.

Attracting minority applicants
"One of the more challenging aspects of hiring is trying to recruit from a diverse racial population," Bynum said.

Competition for minority applicants is tough, and officials with area universities have found they need to take extra steps to attract candidates.

"We want a diverse faculty because we have a diverse student population," Bynum said, and qualified candidates are in high demand.

To attract minority applicants, Bynum said, Web sites such as The Chronicle of Higher Education (www.chronicle.com), HigherEdJobs.com and Monster.com have been good places to advertise.

Howarth said finding minority faculty is a particular challenge for U of L because of the competition. The university places advertisements in publications aimed specifically at minorities, such as Black Issues in Higher Education, he said.

"We also contact individuals we know at other universities about graduating Ph.D.s," Howarth said, in order to find minority applicants. "We're also recruiting graduate students from black universities to do doctoral work at U of L. It's a 'grow your own' strategy that a lot of universities use."

The university recently hired nine African-American faculty members, Howarth said.

One factor in the push for minority hiring comes from the Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education, which was established in 1997 by the state and, among its activities, monitors minority hiring at all state universities, Howarth said.

What candidates want
The current competitive market for professors, especially in hard-to-fill posts, means candidates are able to request preferred conditions for their employment.

"In most cases, they want time for research and a chance to improve their scholarship," Bynum said. "They're looking for innovative teaching programs and looking at the level of technology a university can offer."

Howarth agreed that prospective teachers want time for research.

"If they want to do a lot of research and spend less time teaching, they will not apply for undergraduate positions, but will look for graduate programs. Some want to do Tuesday-to-Thursday teaching so they can do more research."

U of L is able to fulfill some of those requests, Howarth added. "We may be able to accommodate them, depending on the department. We try to find the best match."

Atnip said faculty who apply to work at Indiana University Southeast typically want to spend time in the classroom.

The university offers a tenure track, and professors conduct research and other scholarly work, Atnip said, but "people who are interested in coming to a place like IUS are interested in teaching."

Faculty also "want a balanced faculty life and a decent salary," Atnip added.

Calhoun-French said JCC's applicants also are focused on the interaction with students. "Most of them want to find an opportunity where they can succeed," Calhoun-French said. "They apply because they really are interested in teaching."