As the government and economics departments undertake their annual hiring process, Dartmouth faces a competitive job market, in which the College's location and undergraduate focus may deter potential applicants. As in previous years, it is unclear whether the current searches will result in as many hires as would be ideal for each department.
Difficulties in netting new professors are not exclusive to Dartmouth, as an undersupply of PhDs limits available job applicants " particularly those who meet the standards which Dartmouth demands, several current professors explained.
"So far it seems to be going quite well," government department head William Wohlforth said of his department's search. "But where the rubber hits the road is if we get excited about a candidate and want to make an offer, the question is: Are they also getting other offers?"
The College's specific characteristics may pose some added challenges to the process not found at other institutions.
"It's quite common for a search not to succeed," Wohlforth said. "Dartmouth students I would think would want to be taught by the very best, and the very best is not easy."
Professors in both the economics and government department listed the College's rural setting as a potential deterrent for some applicants. Some academics are reluctant to live far from a major city, while others may be concerned by the lack of a viable job market for their spouses, said government professor John Carey, whose wife, Lisa Baldez, is also a professor in the department.
"The spouse-partner thing is the real challenge," Carey said. "If you find someone who's sort of a lumberjack that works, but there just aren't that many professors who are married to lumberjacks."
Several professors within the government department also noted that the College may lose some applicants because it does not have graduate programs in government. Government professor Dean Lacy said that the perception in the larger academic community is that Dartmouth does not have the resources of a research university -- a judgement that Lacy said is largely false.
"There are a lot of potential job candidates who don't even apply. We have to convince them that this is a place that's in the same league as Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Duke and Stanford," Lacy said. "The lack of a PhD program is a signal read correctly or incorrectly by job candidates that we aren't a research department with the resources that they would need."
Economics department Chair Patricia Anderson said that this distinction is not a factor in the her department, while Associate Dean of the Social Sciences Michael Mastanduno, a government professor, downplayed this difference within the government department, noting that the decision is based on matching the professor to an institution.
"It means that there are some faculty who we're not going to be that interested in, and who aren't going to be that interested in us," Mastanduno said.
For popular departments like government and economics, economics professor David Blanchflower said, the length of the hiring process can be particularly problematic.
"The big problem in both departments is that we are overrun with students," Blanchflower said "We don't have enough people to teach the classes, and we can't hire people quickly."
Both Blanchflower and Mastanduno said that despite these potential strains, departments are unwilling to compromise on the quality of the professors they aim to hire. To fill these gaps in hiring, visiting professors are sometimes used.
"Our view here is that we would rather take a little longer to hire the professor that we really want than compromise and take someone that we feel the department and the students wouldn't be that enthusiastic about, just because we have to fill a spot," Mastanduno said.
Patience is critical in hiring these professors, government professor Michael Herron said, as the decisions made this year will stay with the College in the future.
"We need to be very careful " that's my view. For schools that deny tenure to most people, it's very riskless," Herron said. "For us and for most schools, we should be very cautious. It's a six-year commitment, and no one likes denying tenure to anyone."
Dartmouth does have marked strengths in attracting professors " including the strength of the school's undergraduates and the two departments themselves, Mastanduno added.
"Our students are a major attraction," Mastanduno said. "We do very well with those faculty members who want an environment where they can pursue their scholarship creatively and teach first-rate students."
For both the government and economics departments, hiring of professors occurs mainly in the fall, coinciding with annual professional meetings which may serve as venues for initial candidate screening. The timing of senior faculty hiring can vary.
In this year's search, the economics department is seeking two tenure-track faculty, one at the junior level and one at the senior level, Anderson said. In the government department, Wohlforth said, the search is focused on acquiring two new junior faculty members.
