ERIC Number: ED189450
Record Type: RIE
Publication Date: 1979-Apr
Pages: 18
Abstractor: N/A
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: N/A
EISSN: N/A
Age, Sex and Ethnic Trade-Offs in Faculty Employment: You Can't Have Your Cake and Eat It Too.
Linnell, Robert H.
Age, sex, and ethnic trade-offs in faculty employment in higher education give rise to dilemmas--situations requiring a choice between equally undesirable alternatives. When an over-age-65 faculty member retains a full time position, someone else--probably a woman, ethnic minority, and/or young person--is deprived of a position. The problem of age discrimination against older people becomes the probably worse problem of age discrimination against younger people. Losses to the nation's future are seen in negative impact on young people's professional careers and negative feedback to secondary and undergraduate students who will not consider academic careers. National demographic and enrollment projections and associated faculty requirement forecasts share a pessimistic prediction of faculty demand in the 1980-90s. Recommendations include expanding adult enrollment, increasing retirement and/or quit rates, and providing interim alternative "academic-like" employment. Given the situation of fluctuating and generally declining clientele, continuing inflation, plus mandates to practice affirmative action while protecting older faculty from age discrimination, a possible but unjust trade-off is hiring faculty not on tenure track. The issue of tenure must be faced by designing some kind of performance evaluation to create new positions and improve quality. (Seven firures are attached.) (YLB)
Descriptors: Affirmative Action, Age Discrimination, College Faculty, Competence, Employment Practices, Ethnic Discrimination, Faculty Evaluation, Full Time Faculty, Higher Education, Job Performance, Labor Legislation, Older Adults, Personnel Policy, Retirement, Reverse Discrimination, Sex Discrimination, Teacher Employment, Teacher Supply and Demand, Teaching (Occupation), Tenure, Work Life Expectancy, Young Adults
Publication Type: Opinion Papers; Speeches/Meeting Papers
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: EXXON Education Foundation, New York, NY.
Authoring Institution: University of Southern California, Los Angeles. Office of Institutional Studies.
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
Note: Paper presented at the National Conference on Higher Education, American Association of Higher Education (Washington, DC, April 16-19, 1979).