======================================================================= Survey for the 2004 Astronomy Chairs Meeting (All dollar figures in $1,000's) 0. If you are not attending the meeting is travel funding the principal reason not? A couple mentioned money; for most time was the issue. 1. Starting academic year salary of assistant professors Put an x under the appropriate amount: Salary 41-45 46-50 51-55 56-60 61-65 66-70 70-75 >75 2 2 5 5 11 2 4 1 Of those > 70K 3 were at places which are expensive to live 2. Number of applicants for assistant professor positions Number 51-75 76-100 101-125 126-150 >150 highly variable 7 13 5 2 1 2 3. Hard cash start-up funding A. Instrument builders Amount <100 101-200 201-300 301-400 401-500 >500 variable 3 1 3 5 3 8 2 B. Observers Amount <100 101-200 201-300 301-400 401-500 >500 9 10 5 3 C. Theorists Amount <100 101-200 201-300 301-400 401-500 >500 9 7 6 3 4. Does your institution provide any help with spousal hiring issues? What? Sometimes - depends on the spouse. Can be $10k per year. Yes, there is a career center that coordinates with other Bay Area institutions to look for appropriate opportunities. In four relatively recent cases, spouses have been hired in the department or observatory in soft-funded positions (research and teaching). Two cases each of male and female spouses. Our college is a member of the Academic Career Network, a resource for dual-career couples (http://acn.fivecolleges.edu). Not much; decided on an ad hoc basis Yes, if possible, on an ad hoc basis. They are sympathetic to the issue and we try to work something out on a case-by-case basis. "What?" is a perfectly good response, as in "Eh?" They do try to match up a spouse with a program at Uxx, two nearby universities, but with only modest success. There is no significant pro-active spousal hiring policy. Retention, yes. We will usually offer a trailing "academic" spouse a research faculty position, but almost never a tenure-track position. Precious little Purely case by case Entreaties to other departments if the spouse is an academic, pretty serious employment exploration in community businesses otherwise. Yes, provides support specifically for spousal hires in special circumstances. New positions are created in the appropriate department such that they do not count against possible future retirements or change department long range plans. Yes. Assistance in finding employment. YES. Depends on circumstance. May include a faculty position No standing rules at Uyy, but this issue is potentially negotiable. This has not been a concern for recent hires in our department. Other Uyy departments have had varying success in coordinating "two-body" hires. They try hard Yes, varies from educational support to assistance in gaining employment Yes, it depends, but has included hiring the spouse also as a faculty member The Dean is supportive of hiring spousal pairs onto the faculty Provost can provide partial support for up to three years; the department must match. A lot: all the way up to tenured faculty job for the spouse. Yes. Negotiated case-by-case. There is now a spousal coordinator, though whether that position is effective remains to be seen. Yes. The Dean's office works to create non-tenure track positions for spouses, but never pressures depts to hire spouses as tenure-track. Dual Career Program (Assistance In Placement) Our university is struggling with this, but making a bit of progress, mostly through the help of the ADVANCE program which is funded by NSF. The university has made some spousal hires, be it on temporary positions. The university does (or at least did) also offer the possibility of splitting one tenure-track position in two half time tenure track positions for those candidates interested in exploring that option. spousal hiring salary split 1/3 hiring dept., 1/3 spousal hiring dept., and 1/3 provost. An attempt is made to accommodate spouses of outstanding faculty on a case-by-case basis. Not officially. Yes. Uzz has a Partner Opportunity Program (POP) that will assist the spouse in finding an appropriate position either on campus on in the local area, including faculty and other academic positions on campus. Help in finding non-academic jobs. Supposedly, partial help with faculty salary for 3 years. Seems like lip service yes. They agreed to a soft-money position for a spouse of a person that we were recruiting for a tenure-track position. 5a. How big is your school-funded teaching faculty? Was hoping to do some cerrelations. Have not done so. 5b. How many courses or sections are taught by adjuncts? Most of us use adjuncts 5c. How much are adjuncts paid (in $1000's) to teach one class? Amount <3 3-4 4-5 5-6 6-7 7-8 >8 3 3 1 4 3 8 3 Do you pay more for large classes? Yes 3 No 13 5d. Beyond office staff, how many school-funded support staff do you have? 5e. How many grant-funded PhD research staff do you have? 6. On a 5-year timescale, is the number of faculty numbers in your program decreasing none but one anticipates losses rop roughly constant 18 (5 b; 4 rop; 2 anticipate gains rop) increasing? 12 (7 rop; 1 use of targeted programs) Why? (hiring freeze or budget? b reallocation of priorities? rop) 7. Postdoc salaries A. Local `Prize' Postdocs Amount We don't have any <40 41-45 46-50 51-55 56-60 >60 most 4 6 2 2 Number of applicants: <10 11-20 21-30 31-40 41-50 51-60 >60 variable 1 2 2 1 4 4 B. `Normal' postdocs, e.g. grant funded Amount We don't have any <30 31-35 36-40 41-45 46-50 51-55 56-60 >61 1 1 4 13 3 1 Number of applicants: <10 11-20 21-30 31-40 41-50 51-60 >61 variable 2 5 6 2 3 1 4 several 8. Benefits for postdocs Health Everybody Retirement-`TIAA' 12 Retirement-other 8 No retirement 12 9a. May "limited-term" postdocs serve as grant P.I.'s? Yes 17 No 12 It depends 1 b. May "limited-term" research scientists serve as grant P.I.'s? Yes 21 No 3 It depends 2 10. Graduate applicants Let me crudely summarize: Number is mustly up, in a few cases constant. A few note decreases relative to 10 years ago Quality pretty much the same. Some crumudgingly faculty claim that quality isn't nearly as good as when we were students. US/non-US seems to be increasing. 10a. Academic year (excluding summer) TA/RA salaries, assuming tuition/fees paid from other funds. Amount <10 11-12 13-14 15-16 17-18 19-20 >20 2 8 7 5 1 4 10b. Is summer support guaranteed? Yes 13; Not officialy but in practice yes 6 No 9 10c. Health insurance for TA/RA appointments as part of appointment. Yes 19 (but sometimes it's not very good) No 7 Depends on type of support 2 10c. Do you pay `signing bonuses' to entering grad students? Yes 7 + 2 research budget; No 18 11. Median years to complete Ph.D. Years 4 5 6 7 8 >8 1 1 16 2 1 12. Did you start your career in astronomy because you enjoyed it? If so are you still having fun? 13 repied Yes, and yes. 2 Yes! Mostly yes! 3 Yes, sometimes No, and yes. Yes! Still having fun? Well, plenty of challenges, and I still get to play in the research sandbox. YES; If so are you still having fun? SOMETIMES (whenever I actually get to do astronomy) Yes, and Yes - until I became chair Yes; sometimes as much as two days a week, more if observing by myself... Started by accident. Still having fun Yes on research days Yes, I enjoyed learning more about the Universe as an application of engineering physics ugrad work. It sure beat contributing to the anti-ballistic missle system (summer job at Bell Labs). Chairing has been another "maturing experience", and I'm having fun getting new research program underway. The Dept Chair is a nuclear physicist. xxxxx did, and still does, consider astronomy great fun. Mostly it's still fun. Grant pressure and difficulty of obtaining research funding takes some of the fun out of it, as does filling out lengthy surveys. :-) Good question! Yes, I was passionate about astronomy from an extremely early age. Now, I am beginning to burn out a little around the edges. I will be happy to quit administration. That will make me happier. When immersed in teaching or research without time pressure, I still love it. I am tired of being under time pressure, and hence I do think about retirement. Yes. Not having much fun as chair. The university bureaucracy and private fund raising frenzy has taken a lot of fun away. Yes, I started my career in astronomy because I enjoyed, and I still enjoy the time I spend teaching and doing research, administration is NOT fun and never will be. Yes; and yes given our new small observatory in service as of 2002, when used to train talented physics majors. I am trying to get a 2nd astronomer hired, but the university now has 100 unfilled faculty positions due to $ trouble the past 2 yrs in state X. The administration now intends to start refilling them at the rate of 25/yr. yes, I expect to have fun after my term as Chair ends