UNC raided for faculty talent

The News & Observer
June 9, 2010
By Eric Ferreri - Staff Writer

CHAPEL HILL -- With UNC-Chapel Hill hamstrung by budget constraints, more professors are leaving for higher pay elsewhere, often taking research projects or established programs with them.

The school has lost 53 of 77 faculty members recruited by universities during the last academic year, a retention rate of about 30 percent. Most years, it wins 55 percent to 60 percent of its recruiting battles by boosting pay or adding resources such as a coveted piece of lab equipment.

The losses are a gut shot for one of the nation's top public institutions, where leaders take pride in recruiting and retaining faculty members who might otherwise end up at elite private institutions. But this year, deep-pocketed elites such as Yale and Cornell are having their pick of Chapel Hill faculty.

And it's not just the Ivies. Michigan and Virginia have also lured faculty from Chapel Hill this year. Arizona State, a public university nowhere near Carolina's equal if you go by magazine rankings, has taken the university's sole professor of South Asian history....

Both the state House and Senate have recommended significant cuts to public higher education this year, with the House plan most severe. If adopted, it would cut $175 million from the UNC system's budget and force the elimination of an estimated 1,700 faculty and staff positions, UNC system officials have said. Last year, the UNC system eliminated more than 900 positions across the university system, including hundreds at NCSU and UNC-CH.  Click here to read more.