New Beginnings: A Study of Faculty Career Changers.

Abstract

Ensuring opportunities for satisfying academic careers in fields beset by diminishing demand and in creasing tenure, while maintaining instructional staff in other high demand fields are among the most for midable challenges facing higher education. As William Toombs (15) has aptly stated, "who leaves, who stays, and who enters will determine the quality of higher learn ing in this country." In order to more fully understand the factors that enhance faculty career development, a research study was undertaken at Rochester Institute of Technology in the winter of 1981. The ten colleges that compose RIT offer programs that include business, science, social work, printing management, photography, engineering, fine arts, design, computer science, and supporting pro grams in the liberal arts. It has several graduate pro grams at the master's level. RIT enrolls 13,500 students and employs 800 full-time faculty members.