Editorial: Hiring for the future

But despite these conditions — in fact, because of them — adopting an aggressive hiring policy during a recession could significantly benefit Princeton. With so many universities cutting back, there are many excellent academics searching for limited, open faculty positions at top universities. The institutions that capitalize on this market will assure themselves a better future, and while Princeton is an elite university, it is not peerless. The faculty forms the core of a university. Seizing this opportunity to hire in the current market would allow the University to flourish and excel in the long-term.

In comparison to other universities, Princeton is fortunate, as its financial situation enables administrators to impose only a partial freeze. But Princeton isn’t alone in its ability to adopt this kind of policy: As The Daily Princetonian reported on Nov. 9, other universities, such as NYU and Penn, have not been hit as hard by the economic downturn as Harvard or Yale, or even Princeton. This means that competition among universities for academic talent will exist, though on a lesser scale than it has in the past. It is therefore possible that Princeton’s two-thirds reduction might not be aggressive enough to take full advantage of the opportunity provided by the current market. An analogy to the business world is apt: When everyone else is losing money and valuations are declining, those with large amounts of cash to spend can avail themselves of cheap deals that put them at a competitive advantage for the future.

We realize that it will cost money to capitalize on this opportunity and hire more aggressively. Professors are expensive, and with widespread cuts across the University already, it is unlikely that there are unnecessary expenses remaining that can easily be eliminated. But there are ways to find money. The simplest idea is that the University could increase the percentage of the endowment that it spends to expand hiring. Considering the endowment’s better-than-expected emergence from the economic crisis, an extra investment in such a fundamental resource as strong faculty might be the appropriate decision. But if the University feels it needs to remain cautious with endowment spending, this may not be possible. And considering recently announced layoffs, spending more money on new faculty — regardless of their importance to Princeton’s academic mission — could seem insensitive. Once this two-year span of cuts has ended, however, increasing the spending for faculty hiring should be the University’s first priority.

Princeton is in a good position compared to its peers, but the current hiring reduction may not allow us to make any advantage of it. There is inherent risk involved in any investment, but funding new faculty has the potential for a high payoff that will reward Princeton well into the future. Nassau Hall should act on this by changing spending plans now or as soon as possible.