Politics dept. faces faculty departures

As university endowments reap the bounty of a strong economy, colleges across the country have been better able to lure faculty away from institutions like Princeton.

Starting in 1999 with former professor of politics John DiIulio and current professor Robert George, several members of the politics department have been in high demand.

"We always consider that a great thing," Dean of the Faculty Joseph Taylor said. The demand reflects the strength of the University's departments, he added.

However, faculty who are transferring in addition to those retiring have created numerous vacancies within the department and changes in its course offerings.

Three senior members of the politics faculty will give up their teaching duties at the University in the fall, as will two junior professors.

"I think we're dealing with small numbers," Taylor said, noting that "every department is different" when it comes to faculty changes.

University politics professors Richard Falk and Fred Greenstein will both move over to emeritus status in the coming year, while professor Joanne Gowa — who specializes in international relations — will be "on leave."

Assistant professors Kenneth Schultz and Jeffrey Lewis will both transfer to UCLA.

"We don't consider it a crisis situation in the politics department," Taylor said, noting that, "we have made very good recruitments for the coming year."

Gowa will teach at the University of Pennsylvania in the fall. "I have family reasons to do so, and am very pleased that professor Herbst and Dean Taylor have given me the opportunity to do this," Gowa said.

Schultz said that the primary factor that made UCLA attractive was because of family reasons. "There wasn't anything that Princeton could have done."

He added that he believed the changes in the department were "not indicative of any larger structural change."

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"I wouldn't be worried in that sense, though I'm sure it could arouse problems with undergraduates who wanted to take a course by a specific professor," he added.

Schultz separated the change in faculty composition into the senior level and the junior level.

"All junior faculty have in the back of their minds that their time horizon at the University may be limited," he said, attesting to the difficulty of receiving tenure at a place like Princeton.

However, "almost every decision depends to some extent on idiosyncrasies," he said, noting that most of the faculty can get a job anywhere.

Greenstein said that he will keep a place at the University, despite his official retirement.

"I will keep my office for the coming year at least and continue to bring in visiting people from public life," Greenstein said. He said that he may teach a course in the future, but he added that the advantage of retirement is to spend time travelling.

The departure of faculty members creates procedural problem of filling the positions in a short time while maintaining such high standards, Schultz said.

"We want the very best people out there," Politics Chair Jeffrey Herbst said. The department's choice is a composite of what it already has and what the applicants have to bring to Princeton, he said.

Six new professors have been recruited to the University, four of whom will teach in the fall.

"We've done quite well recruiting at the junior level," Schultz said, "and we have excellent resources to sweeten the offer."

Course selection will also inevitably change with the shifts in the department. "New people bring new courses," Herbst said. "There are very few courses that don't change over time."

Despite the changes in faculty, students remained optimistic about the course selection.

"Every student certainly wants their department to offer as many excellent courses as possible," politics major Loran Gutt '02 said, "and while I would want Politics to offer as wide a variety of courses as possible, I would not want the department to compromise quality of courses for quantity of courses."