At a recent conference of university leaders, Northwestern President Henry Bienen said a colleague approached him about a bidding war with NU for a top-tier professor.
NU’s competitive offer for research funding had forced the colleague to give the professor a better appointment.
“Do you know how much you cost me?” the president asked.
NU is one of the many American research universities engaged in an “arms race” to draw acclaimed faculty to their campuses, Bienen said. In 2006 alone, NU spent nearly $500 million on research, according to a 2008 report by The Center for Measuring University Performance at Arizona State University.
“The American model of research in the past has been a very competitive model,” Bienen said.
Universities in the top tier of higher education are both victims and beneficiaries of “ramped-up expectations,” said University Provost Daniel Linzer.
“Only so many institutions can be top-10, and it’s largely fueled by public attention,” he said.
For NU to compete with other top universities, it has to engage in what Linzer calls “game playing,” making itself attractive to renowned faculty to bolster departments and programs, a field in which President Bienen excels, said outgoing Board of Trustees Chairman Pat Ryan.
“I think Henry has distinguished himself in his ability to bring in really high-quality people and also to retain them … because your good people are always under attack,” Ryan said.
Bienen acknowledged that the university’s success in building a nanoscience program before its peers was an achievement made possible through acquiring preeminent faculty.
“It was a big bet we made here right after I came in,” Bienen said. “We were lucky because we got there early.”
However, as the price of attracting first-rate faculty rises, so does the cost of attending schools like NU, said Steven Brint, a sociologist and dean at the University of California, Riverside who studies the evolution of higher education. He said private universities like NU subsidize 20 percent of these costs themselves, and the rest is funded by other private or federal sources.
“To attract the highest-quality professors involves research funds, which can be well into the millions of dollars,” Brint said.
Through the recession and beyond, Bienen said he does not know of a sustainable model that would balance low tuition increases and increased financial aid with continued high levels of research spending.
“You could say, ‘well, research is expensive’ and not do research, but we are a research university,” Bienen said. “It’s hard to think of big structural changes at universities like us which will make them less expensive.”
Although NU’s endowment has dropped nearly $2 billion, its ability to stay competitive is not in any immediate danger, Brint said. But this is not the case for all universities, he added, and whether or not there is a burst in the bubble in spending for big names at research universities remains to be seen.
“Thus far, the high tuition model has worked,” Brint said “It’s had enough paying customers, but it’s going to get tougher.”
Weinberg Dean Sarah Mangelsdorf added that in many cases, hiring freezes at other universities have afforded NU strategic opportunities. As of right now, the university is not cutting its budget for salaries and is instead cutting its operational budget by 3 percent.
“Most of the things you read about that are happening at universities around this country really haven’t happened here,” she said. “It is actually a great opportunity for hiring, because not a lot of other places are hiring.”
Even under the strain of economic downturn, Bienen said he sees research universities like NU remaining “the great comparative advantage of the United States” well into the future.
“If you talk to corporate execs, they know it; if you talk to people overseas, they know it,” he said. “They do better than anything else internationally,”
Lilia Hargis and Matt Spector contributed reporting.
