The Academic Marketplace Revisited: A Study of Faculty Mobility Using the Cartter Ratings

Abstract

This study examines the characteristics of faculty who joined the top twenty departments in six disciplines between 1963 and 1966 in order to evaluate the relative importance of prestige of doctoral origing and scholarly performance in the selection for a position in these departments. While there is a weak relationship between rank of doctorate and rank of hiring department, graduates from departments with the highest ranks are much more likely to be hired by all the top twenty departments. When rank of academic affilation and levels of productivity, citations, and recognition are controlled, the proportion of graduates hired from the highest ranking departments remains the same. Among senior faculty, this proportion diminishes slihgtly when these factors are controlled. These findings suggest that, among younger faculty, prestige of doctorate rather than past performance is used as a predictor of future performance by those who are responsible for faculty recritment.