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Why do faculty members leave a university?

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Abstract

This paper uses the results of a survey of tenured faculty members who resigned from the University of Minnesota to analyze the factors that influenced their decisions to leave. The results indicate that the probability of accepting an outside offer is positively related to the expected salary gain, but that other general factors are also important determinants of faculty decision making in this area. However, even with the survey results, we know very little in any systematic sense about specific factors that influence individual faculty decisions, particularly about differences in these factors for those faculty who leave as opposed to those who remain. To analyze faculty retention more completely, we need additional information about the personal circumstances of faculty members who are and are not retention cases and more extensive information on why the retention cases made their eventual choices about staying at or leaving the institution.

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Weiler, W.C. Why do faculty members leave a university?. Res High Educ 23, 270–278 (1985). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00973790

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