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Suggested Citation:"Academic Departments." National Research Council. 1970. The Life Sciences: Recent Progress and Application to Human Affairs The World of Biological Research Requirements for the Future. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9575.
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Suggested Citation:"Academic Departments." National Research Council. 1970. The Life Sciences: Recent Progress and Application to Human Affairs The World of Biological Research Requirements for the Future. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9575.
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Suggested Citation:"Academic Departments." National Research Council. 1970. The Life Sciences: Recent Progress and Application to Human Affairs The World of Biological Research Requirements for the Future. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9575.
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Suggested Citation:"Academic Departments." National Research Council. 1970. The Life Sciences: Recent Progress and Application to Human Affairs The World of Biological Research Requirements for the Future. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9575.
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Suggested Citation:"Academic Departments." National Research Council. 1970. The Life Sciences: Recent Progress and Application to Human Affairs The World of Biological Research Requirements for the Future. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9575.
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Suggested Citation:"Academic Departments." National Research Council. 1970. The Life Sciences: Recent Progress and Application to Human Affairs The World of Biological Research Requirements for the Future. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9575.
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Suggested Citation:"Academic Departments." National Research Council. 1970. The Life Sciences: Recent Progress and Application to Human Affairs The World of Biological Research Requirements for the Future. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9575.
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Suggested Citation:"Academic Departments." National Research Council. 1970. The Life Sciences: Recent Progress and Application to Human Affairs The World of Biological Research Requirements for the Future. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9575.
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Suggested Citation:"Academic Departments." National Research Council. 1970. The Life Sciences: Recent Progress and Application to Human Affairs The World of Biological Research Requirements for the Future. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9575.
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Suggested Citation:"Academic Departments." National Research Council. 1970. The Life Sciences: Recent Progress and Application to Human Affairs The World of Biological Research Requirements for the Future. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9575.
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Suggested Citation:"Academic Departments." National Research Council. 1970. The Life Sciences: Recent Progress and Application to Human Affairs The World of Biological Research Requirements for the Future. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9575.
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Suggested Citation:"Academic Departments." National Research Council. 1970. The Life Sciences: Recent Progress and Application to Human Affairs The World of Biological Research Requirements for the Future. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9575.
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Suggested Citation:"Academic Departments." National Research Council. 1970. The Life Sciences: Recent Progress and Application to Human Affairs The World of Biological Research Requirements for the Future. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9575.
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Suggested Citation:"Academic Departments." National Research Council. 1970. The Life Sciences: Recent Progress and Application to Human Affairs The World of Biological Research Requirements for the Future. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9575.
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Suggested Citation:"Academic Departments." National Research Council. 1970. The Life Sciences: Recent Progress and Application to Human Affairs The World of Biological Research Requirements for the Future. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9575.
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Suggested Citation:"Academic Departments." National Research Council. 1970. The Life Sciences: Recent Progress and Application to Human Affairs The World of Biological Research Requirements for the Future. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9575.
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Suggested Citation:"Academic Departments." National Research Council. 1970. The Life Sciences: Recent Progress and Application to Human Affairs The World of Biological Research Requirements for the Future. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9575.
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Suggested Citation:"Academic Departments." National Research Council. 1970. The Life Sciences: Recent Progress and Application to Human Affairs The World of Biological Research Requirements for the Future. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9575.
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Suggested Citation:"Academic Departments." National Research Council. 1970. The Life Sciences: Recent Progress and Application to Human Affairs The World of Biological Research Requirements for the Future. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9575.
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Suggested Citation:"Academic Departments." National Research Council. 1970. The Life Sciences: Recent Progress and Application to Human Affairs The World of Biological Research Requirements for the Future. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9575.
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Suggested Citation:"Academic Departments." National Research Council. 1970. The Life Sciences: Recent Progress and Application to Human Affairs The World of Biological Research Requirements for the Future. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9575.
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Suggested Citation:"Academic Departments." National Research Council. 1970. The Life Sciences: Recent Progress and Application to Human Affairs The World of Biological Research Requirements for the Future. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9575.
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Suggested Citation:"Academic Departments." National Research Council. 1970. The Life Sciences: Recent Progress and Application to Human Affairs The World of Biological Research Requirements for the Future. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9575.
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Suggested Citation:"Academic Departments." National Research Council. 1970. The Life Sciences: Recent Progress and Application to Human Affairs The World of Biological Research Requirements for the Future. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9575.
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Suggested Citation:"Academic Departments." National Research Council. 1970. The Life Sciences: Recent Progress and Application to Human Affairs The World of Biological Research Requirements for the Future. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9575.
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Suggested Citation:"Academic Departments." National Research Council. 1970. The Life Sciences: Recent Progress and Application to Human Affairs The World of Biological Research Requirements for the Future. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9575.
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Suggested Citation:"Academic Departments." National Research Council. 1970. The Life Sciences: Recent Progress and Application to Human Affairs The World of Biological Research Requirements for the Future. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9575.
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Below is the uncorrected machine-read text of this chapter, intended to provide our own search engines and external engines with highly rich, chapter-representative searchable text of each book. Because it is UNCORRECTED material, please consider the following text as a useful but insufficient proxy for the authoritative book pages.

THE ACADEMIC ENDEAVOR IN THE LIFE SCIENCES 279 meets. In consequence, the funds in support of clinical research reported to us cannot be reconciled with the much larger amounts known to have been committed by federal agencies, particularly the National Institutes of Health. Withal, it has been possible to construct a quantitative descrip- tion of the academic research endeavor in the life sciences that is adequate to our task. A total of 1,256 academic departmental chairmen provided our infor- mation; their data are summarized in Tables 25 and 26. Of these, 246 chaired departments in colleges of arts and sciences (including engineering and graduate studies), 267 chaired departments in colleges of agriculture (including forestry), and 694 chaired departments in colleges of medicine, approximately equally divided between clinical and preclinical departments. Decidedly smaller groups from schools of dentistry, pharmacy, public health, and veterinary medicine were treated together as "other health-professional." One third of all departments were in private universities; two thirds were in state universities, and only 26 departments were in municipal institutions. Collectively, these departments reported 17,172 faculty members, of whom three fourths were devoting 20 percent or more of their effort to research, and 1,436 were continuing senior research associates. They employed just under 11,000 technicians and animal care personnel, 512 business and laboratory managers, 6,416 supporting personnel, and 6,700 clerical and secretarial staff. Of the 5,223 postdoctoral appointees, 1,945 were post- M.D. and 3,278 post-Ph.D. In addition, there were stated to be another 1,546 M.D.'s engaged in residency training that included a significant research component. Of all postdoctoral appointees, 2,013 were foreign nationals, only 309 of whom had received their doctoral degrees in the United States. These departments, containing 23,287 graduate students, of whom 15,755 were adjudged to be "potential Ph.D. candidates," collectively awarded . 2,332 Ph.L'.7s in academic year 1966-1967. In addition, 2,138 medical students, not enrolled in programs leading to the Ph.D. degree, were en- gaged in research among these departments. Collectively, these 17,172 individuals utilized 13,423,000 net square {~t ^f l.~h1- rPc~rrh In.. and their efforts were supported by $304 million (direct costs) in research grants, in addition to funds provided from institutional resources, training grants, and fellowships. 11_~ ~ Id i- ~ _~_~A _~^ Van __ _ ~ ~ ACADEMIC DEPARTMENTS Research in the life sciences is conducted in three major organizational entities of universities colleges of arts and sciences, colleges of agriculture,

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282 THE LIFE SCIENCES and medical schools. Departmental titles are remarkably varied in all three organizational components. Indeed, the 1,256 responses to this question- naire revealed 195 distinct departmental titles; returns from individual biologists in their questionnaires indicated about 300 others! For our purposes, these were reclassified as Animal Husbandry, as Agronomy and Forestry, as one of 11 other scientific disciplines, or as clinical medical sciences. Although some of these compressions were rather arbitrary, there is little likelihood that they gave bias to summary data. A major general trend is discernible in the academic colleges of arts and sciences. The unity of biology has compelled consolidation into single biology departments in the private universities, but, as yet, this trend is not nearly as pronounced in the public universities. Reports were obtained from 54 departments of biology in the arts and sciences faculties of private schools, and from 57 departments so titled in public universities. However, the private schools reported only four departments of botany and five departments of zoology, as compared with 48 and 80, respectively, in the public schools. The chief beneficiaries of this consolidation are the students, both undergraduate and graduate, since consolidated departments facilitate consolidated course planning and a unified presentation of current under- standing of living systems. The relative sluggishness of public universities in this regard is not a reflection on the sophistication of their faculties but, rather, is the consequence of their teaching responsibilities to their very large student bodies. This is further reflected in the mean faculty sizes- 17 for the 54 biology departments in private schools and 16 in both the botany and zoology departments of the public schools. Were the public schools to consolidate these departments, their faculties would be twice the mean size of the consolidated departments of private schools. More- over, on the campuses of the 57 public universities that do have consoli- dated biology departments. the mean faculty size is only 13, so that, as in the private sector, consolidation has occurred when the faculty group is not too large. The other major departmental titles are those common to the preclinical component of medical schools: anatomy, biochemistry, microbiology, pathology, pharmacology, and physiology, to which were added, for sepa- rate analysis, the 16 departments of biophysics and the 10 departments of genetics that were reported. However, included within these categories in our tabulated data are numerous departments with similar titles that are not based in medical schools. Thus, of 107 reporting biochemistry depart- ~nents, 24 are components of colleges of arts and sciences and 18 of agri- culture schools. Nineteen departments of microbiology were components of arts and sciences faculties, while five were components of agriculture

THE ACADEMIC ENDEAVOR IN THE LIFE SCIENCES 283 schools. One department of pathology was stated to be a component of an arts and sciences college, while 17 were actually departments of plant pathology. Approximately half of all solicited department chairmen responded to the questionnaire. Test examinations revealed no particular bias; the per- centage returned from public and private schools, preclinical medical school departments, and departments in the colleges of agriculture and arts and sciences were all much the same. A somewhat lower rate of return, how- ever, was experienced from clinical departments, as indicated earlier. A distinct effort was made, by letter and telephone, to assure response from the largest known departments in each category; the failure rate in these instances was extremely low. Thus, the sample available to us represents a very large fraction of academia and, except for the clinical departments, in the main, the missing departments are likely to be departments with rela- tively small on-going programs of research and graduate education. Table 1, Appendix B. contains a summary of departmental returns. Tables 25 and 26 summarize major aspects of responding departments according to their places in the organization of the university and by dis- cipline, respectively. The Life Sciences Faculty In a general way, one fourth of the reported life sciences faculty functions in the arts and sciences schools, another fourth in the agriculture schools, and approximately half (52 percent) in the medical schools, of which the preclinical component represents 22 percent and the clinical component 30 percent. An additional 3 percent were on the faculties of a variety of such other health-professional schools as dentistry, veterinary medicine, and public health. The agriculture schools are, without exception, in state institutions or in institutions under combined state and private auspices. Thirty-six percent of all reported academic life scientists were in private institutions, where the arts and sciences group was about one third the size of the medical faculty. Two thirds of all reported faculty were in publicly sponsored institutions, which include, in addition to the agricultural faculty, the arts and sciences faculty (l6 percent), the preclinical faculty (11 per- cent), and the clinical faculty (13 percent). The title "instructor" has essentially fallen into disuse except in clinical departments. In the total system there were approximately equal numbers of professors, associate professors, and assistant professors; full professors

284 THE LIFE SCIENCES were the largest single component of the arts and sciences and agricultural faculties, while assistant professors were the most numerous group among medical faculties. UNFILLEI) FACULTY POSITIONS Seven percent of all budgeted positions were unfilled in 1967, the year for which these data were available, varying from 5 percent in the agricultural schools to 8 percent in the medical schools. Roughly one sixth of these unfilled positions were at the rank of full professor, one third at the rank of associate professor, and one half at the rank of assistant professor. That general pattern obtained in both public and private schools but was more evident in the latter, where 10 percent of all budgeted preclinical positions, half of them at the rank of assistant professor, were unfilled in that year. It is our impression that, with the opening of several new medical schools, this circumstance has been further exacerbated. This is borne out by data collected by the American Medical Association*: In academic year 1968- 1969, 579 preclinical and 1,112 clinical faculty positions were budgeted but unfilled. Of all unfilled positions reported to us, 16 percent were in the colleges of agriculture, 23 percent in the arts and sciences faculties, and 60 percent in the medical schools, distributed evenly between preclinical and clinical departments. Thus, the overall distribution of unfilled positions is much like that of the existing reporting faculties. Each department chairman also indicated the extent to which he expected the departmental faculty would grow in the next four years. This overall growth pattern was not significantly different from that of the existing faculties. Each segment of the system anticipated growth by 20-30 percent, averaging 27 percent within that period. The most optimistic group was the health-professional, other than medical, schools, which anticipated 35 per- cent growth. The medical schools anticipated faculty growth of about 29 percent, arts and sciences departments 27 percent, and the agricultural schools about 21 percent, predominantly in the lower echelons of the aca- demic hierarchy. Similarly, when examined by disciplinary departments, each discipline anticipated 20-30 percent growth in the subsequent four years. In all, 1,257 budgeted but unfilled positions were reported by department chairmen for fiscal year 1967. The overall increment to which these depart- ment chairmen looked forward would have required the addition of yet i: Medical Education in the United States 1968-1969. "Medical School Faculties," p. 1477. Reprinted from ].A.M.A. 210(8):1455-1587, 1969.

THE ACADEMIC ENDEAVOR IN THE LIFE SCIENCES another 4,941 budgeted positions for a total of 6,200 new faculty, i.e., slightly more than one third of the already existing faculty, in addition to positions created by retirement and death. About 2,000 of these additions would necessarily be from among those with medical degrees. These num- bers may be related to the annual output of the overall system. If it is assumed that all appointments for these positions would be filled by indi- viduals with postdoctoral experience, and that the mean postdoctoral experience time is two years, it follows that these 6,200 new faculty posi- tions must be filled from a total through-put of about 4,000 postdoctoral physicians and 6,600 post-Ph.D's known to come through the system in the same period of four years (one half current postdoctoral population X 41. Thus, the total operation of the system produces a surplus of about 60 percent more postdoctorate than there could be new budgeted academic positions to be filled in this system during the same period. The surplus, about 2,000 M.D.'s and 2,300 Ph.D.'s, with an average of two years of postdoctoral training each, plus all the Ph.D.'s who do not take postdoctoral training, will become available over this four-year period to fill positions in government, industry, and a variety of nonprofit research-performing establishments. This pattern is not markedly different from that which was noted earlier; about two thirds of all responding individuals who had had postdoctoral training remained within the academic world. Half of the four-year projection period has now elapsed, and it is uncer- tain what fraction of this anticipated growth has been realized. The gross preclinical faculty of the nation grew from 6,004 to 7,098 during this period, while the clinical faculty increased from 13,292 to 15,916, but much of this was due to the opening of new medical schools. Meanwhile, the fraction of all budgeted positions that were unfilled remained essentially constant. It is our impression, based on quite inadequate documentation, that the anticipated growth rate in our reporting departments has not occurred. The decline in the growth of federal expenditures for research has curtailed the growth of a system that, as we shall see, is substantially dependent upon federal funding. The operation of the selective service system has not affected medical school enrollments, but it has begun to limit the contribu- tions of the medical school preclinical departments to graduate education. The growth of graduate enrollments in those two years was about as rapid as anticipated, but was probably significantly affected by the draft in the Fall of 1969. This diminution in the growth of graduate education affects the teaching responsibilities of three fourths of the academic life scientists in our population, viz., all but the clinical departments. Accordingly, failure of the combined faculties to increase quite as rapidly as had been anticipated has been mitigated, in part, by the unfortunate circumstances 285

286 THE LIFE SCIENCES that have deflected significant numbers of bright young men from graduate education in the life sciences. It is, as yet, too early to establish the extent to which the changing mood of the country with respect to the conduct of science will affect graduate enrollments in the life sciences. Graduate Education in the Life Sciences Department chairmen reported the presence in their departments of a total of 23,287 bona fide graduate students, of whom 15,755 were stated to be Ph.D. candidates. Unfortunately, the definitions provided were an inade- quate guide and it is not clear how to interpret the discrepancy of 7,500 students. Department chairmen interpreted "Ph.D. candidate" variously. In some instances, "Ph.D. candidate" was taken as a student who had com- pleted all requirements but the dissertation; in others, only those students who had passed preliminary examinations for the Ph.D.; in still other instances, the term was used simply to exclude those graduate students known to have enrolled for training leading only to the master's degree. Further, a significant number of departments contain graduate students who are simply extending their educations and aspire to no advanced degree. Under these circumstances, the figure of 15,755 must be viewed as a mini- mum of bona fide Ph.D. candidates and the true value must remain unestab- lished. Accordingly, in the discussion that follows, the total number of graduate students in residence will be taken as the base, though this must exceed the true number of Ph.D. aspirants. Of all graduate students, 27 percent were in agricultural schools, 46 percent were in graduate schools of arts and sciences, and 25 percent were in medical schools. The 6 percent of graduate students in clinical depart- ments was a surprise to the authors of this report, and one may suspect that, in some instances, medical students engaged in extracurricular research in clinical-science departments may have been recorded as graduate students. The other health-professional schools combined accounted for 2 percent of all graduate students. As expected, more than three fourths of all graduate students were in universities under public auspices. All agricultural gradu- ate students are so located, as are almost three fourths of the students in graduate colleges of arts and sciences, two thirds of those in the medical schools, and essentially all those in other health-professional schools. When the graduate student body is examined by disciplines, 20 percent were enrolled in departments of biology and 18 percent in departments of zoology, followed in rank order by biochemistry, the plant sciences of the agricultural schools, microbiology, botany, the clinical medical sciences, and physiology.

THE ACADEMIC ENDEAVOR IN THE LIFE SCIENCES A decade ago, support of graduate students as research assistants by stipends defrayed from research grants made to individual faculty members was the norm, rivaled only by university teaching assistantships. This mode of financing has receded considerably in importance; only 13 percent of all the students in the system examined here were so paid (Table 271. In contrast, 38 percent of students were supported with institutional or other nonfederal funds, largely teaching assistantships, while 42 percent received stipends originating in one of several federal programs designed to support research training. The major single federal source was the disciplinary training-grants programs of the National Institutes of Health, largely those of the National Institute of General Medical Sciences. National Science Foundation training and institutional grants combined supported only 3 percent of all graduate students in this system. Direct competitive national fellowships were provided to 8 percent of the students, and National De- fense Education Act Awards to but 4 percent. The distribution of support of disciplines differs significantly from the overall pattern in a number of instances. For example, only 15 percent of all students in agronomy and forestry and 20 percent of the students in botany received any form of federal support, whereas more than half of the latter had university assistantships. This pattern was only slightly different from that in zoology, in which 29 percent of students had federal support and 40 percent held teaching assistantships. The biology departments of private universities resemble the preclinical departments more than they do their own counterparts in public universities, in the sense that 50 percent of their students had federal support from some source. Departmental training grants supported one fourth of their students, and their graduate students were most successful of all in competing for fellowships on the national scene, some 15 percent being so supported. In greatest contrast to the classical biology departments is the pattern of graduate-student support in biochemistry. Biochemistry graduate stu- dents enjoyed 20 percent of all support from the National Institutes of Health training-grant system, which thus supported 30 percent of all bio- chemistry graduate students; nevertheless, because of the relative lack of teaching assistantships in this discipline, 19 percent of all biochemistry graduate students were still supported from faculty research grants. Na- tional Institutes of Health training grants loomed much larger in the support of students in pharmacology, genetics, anatomy, physiology, and micro- biology (providing 62, SO, 42, 39, and 39 percent of their support, respec- tively) and nearly two thirds of all students in clinical science departments were similarly supported. Sixty-one percent of all graduate students in the system were supported on a year-round basis. Eighty-one percent of those in the preclinical de 287

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THE ACADEMIC ENDEAVOR IN THE LIFE SCIENCES partments of medical schools, but only 50 percent of those in the colleges of arts and sciences, were so supported. A fourth of the latter received support for eight to ten months and another fourth for some lesser fraction of the year. The pattern in the schools of agriculture lies between these two extremes. For graduate students who work in clinical departments, short- tenn support appears to be the norm: 68 percent of all graduate students working in clinical departments received support for less than severs months of the year. It seems likely that many of these have home bases in other departments during the rest of the year. CAPACITY OF THE CURRENT GRADUATE EDUCATION SYSTEM An attempt was made to compare the attributes of departments that have conferred Ph.D. degrees ("performer departments") with those that now have graduate students whom they consider to be Ph.D. candidates but: have never awarded this degree previously ~ "promiser departments" ~ . These two classes were examined relative to a variety of faculty, number of postdoctoral fellows, amount of space, - , . federal research support. criteria: size of and volume of The promiser departments were not significantly smaller than the per- former departments in their faculty size, available physical plant, or scien- tific facilities. They had been decidedly less successful in attracting post- doctoral fellows and federal research funds as well as graduate students. In a general way, it is probably safe to conclude that the mean quality of the faculty of the promiser departments as it might be judged by their peers is less impressive than the quality of the faculties of the performer departments and that this is the primary reason for the relatively smaller attraction to graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and federal research- supporting agencies. This should be read as a fact of history, not as criticism. The "performers" were off to an earlier start, and, in general, have been more generously supported by their parent universities. As indi- cated by a recent report of the National Science Board,* the chief mech- anism for upgrading the total performance of a research-performing graduate department is to offer competitive salaries for the faculty. The intentions of the "promisers" are evident in the fact that 126 of these 146 departments (86 percent), scattered among all disciplines in the ' Toward a Public Policy for Graduate Education in the Sciences, Report of the National Science Board, National Science Board-National Science Foundation, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C., 1969, p. 328-298. Graduate Education: Parameters for Public Policy, Report Prepared for the Na- tional Science Board, National Science Board-National Science Foundation, U.S Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C., 1969, p. 331-173. 289

290 THE LIFE SCIENCES study, indicated that they could significantly expand their graduate student bodies with the current space and faculty available to them, whereas 70 percent of the performer departments similarly indicated that their capacity was less than saturated. This varied from 56 percent of all zoology depart- ments to 84 percent of the agricultural sciences departments. In all, the performer departments indicated their ability to accept another 3,255 grad- uate students, while the promiser departments considered that they had room for another 774 students; i.e., the total system could accommodate a 27 percent increase in graduate students, with no requirement for addi- tional faculty or for increased space other than that which was available, under construction, or in advanced planning in the summer of 1967. Again, the pattern varied by discipline: The classical departments on campus (biology, zoology, botany) appeared to be closest to saturation, with room for a mean increment of only about 15 percent in their graduate enroll- ments. In general, the other disciplinary departments could accommodate increments that were about twice as large, expressed as percentages of their current student enrollments. Space and faculty were the chief limitations to further enrollments in those departments that indicated that they were already saturated; 74 de- partments were limited only by space, 14 only by faculty size, and 88 departments required both space and faculty if graduate student enrollments were to be augmented. These data must be regarded in the light of anticipated graduate enroll- ments over an extended time scale. Historically, graduate enrollments in the United States have doubled each decade since the Civil War. This trend has accelerated somewhat since World War II; indeed, enrollments almost trebled in the last decade. Although the Vietnam war may cause a temporary deflection in this growth curve, the overall trend should continue until about 1980 if demographic projections are correct, unless the federal government deliberately fails to support such growth, a trend that is evident in the budget proposed for fiscal year 1971. Moreover, data from the Office of Education indicate that graduate enrollments in the life sciences have recently been increasing more rapidly than have those in the physical sciences, while the proportion of all graduate students enrolled in the natural sciences has decreased somewhat. Accordingly, were it not for the Vietnam episode, one would have anticipated that the entire capacity of the national system for graduate education in the life sciences would be saturated within two years. That day has been postponed by the Vietnam war and continua- tion of the draft, but it cannot be more than four years off unless either a substantial construction program is soon inaugurated or students are dis- couraged by lack of stipends or potential jobs.

THE ACADEMIC ENDEAVOR IN THE LIFE SCIENCES It is uncertain whether the market for those with advanced degrees is similarly reaching saturation. Industry requires considerably more life scientists than it can find; if the 16 new medical schools now under develop- ment, which are urgently required to meet the national demands for medical care, are to be staffed, if undergraduate students are to have the kind of educations for which they are clamoring, if the students in the junior col- leges are to have instruction from suitably trained scientists, the graduate enterprise in the life sciences must be augmented in substantial fashion to meet the national need. It is clear that practically all those receiving Ph.D.'s in 1968 and 1969 have found positions in which they can utilize their education. But, at this date, there is growing apprehension that there will be insufficient opportunities for the graduate class of 1970, despite the urgency of national needs. STUDENT STIPENDS Department chairmen reporting graduate students with 11 to 12 months of financial support 69 percent of our file were queried concerning the extent to which the stipend levels set by the national competitive fellowships offered by the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foun- dation have established a norm for graduate students' stipends. From their reports, we find that 40 percent of all such graduate students were receiving stipends of the magnitude stipulated by the federal agencies in their com- petitive fellowship programs, 13 percent received stipends that were lower in varying degree, and 47 percent received stipends that exceeded these national norms. In those departments in which National Institutes of Health training programs or national fellowships constituted a major input to graduate stipends, this tended to maintain the national norm; accord- ingly, in the preclinical departments of private medical schools, four times as many students received the basic federal stipend as received increments beyond that level. One third of the students in the graduate colleges of arts and sciences in the same institutions received stipends greater than those of the national fellowships. In the public universities, 42 percent of the grad- uate students in the arts and sciences faculties received "excessive" stipends while, in the agriculture schools, 72 percent of all the graduate students received stipends greater than the national norms. No information was requested concerning the specific sources of funds utilized to pay these higher stipends. In our view, no national purpose is served by interdepartmental compe- tition for bright graduate students based upon funds available to pay stipends. Nor should increments in stipend levels be paid for a reasonable

THE LIFE SCIENCES amount of teaching. We believe that a modest amount of undergraduate teaching should be an intrinsic aspect of the experience of all graduate students, except for those who obviously have no talent for such teaching, regardless of the source of funds for their stipends. We believe, further, that it is in the national interest that there be a standard stipend level for essentially all graduate students, albeit with two provisos. (a) It appears reasonable to adjust the basic stipend to reject the cost of living in the region of each university. (b) Increased stipends are appropriate when it is deemed necessary and desirable to attract students into an underpopulated research area that should be expanded in the national interest, e.g., research in problems germane to monitoring the effects of environmental pollutants on the public health and in some aspects of agriculture research. We are persuaded of the great virtue of training grants of the type awarded by the National Institutes of Health. These grants provide both graduate and postdoctoral stipends as well as funds for consumable sup- plies, communally used equipment, visiting lecturers, and, when appro- priate, for additional faculty positions. They are concerned, therefore, not only with the quantitative scale but also with the quality of graduate edu- cation and have markedly upgraded such education in most departments that have known such support. We regret that equivalent programs are not available in support of other life science departments, indeed of academic departments generally. In our view, the total support system should so evolve that virtually all federal stipends for graduate students would be provided by this mechanism. As the federal government assumes its re- sponsibility for graduate education, it seems pointless to enlarge the fellow- ship system of one-to-one correspondence between federal agencies and individual graduate students who must, nevertheless, win admission to graduate study in the departments of their choice. Moreover, the National Institutes of Health experience demonstrates that it is possible for an ex- ternal jury of peers to evaluate periodically the quality and appropriate scale of graduate education in a given department without generating undue rancor and in a far more sophisticated manner than can either the inade- quately informed graduating senior or undergraduate adviser in some re- mote institution or the local graduate dean. One hurdle for this evolutionary development is the support of students who for purely personal, perhaps geographic, reasons choose to undertake study in graduate departments that fail to qualify for such training grants. This contingency could be met by an appropriately designed limited fel- lowship program or simply by stipends defrayed from faculty research grants. Where the latter do not exist, graduate education is scarcely of a quality to recommend it to prospective students.

THE ACADEMIC ENDEAVOR IN THE LIFE SCIENCES 293 Postdoctoral Fellows In all, 5,223 postdoctoral appointees were located in the system (Tables 28 and 29) . Of these, 22 percent were in colleges of arts and sciences, 7 per- cent in agricultural schools, 28 percent in preclinical departments of medical schools, 39 percent in their clinical departments, and 4 percent in other health-professional schools; 1,945 of the total held medical degrees. Seventy- six percent of all postdoctoral appointees received support from federal sources. As we have already noted, the role of the preclinical departments of medical schools, in postdoctoral as well as in graduate education, continues to expand. This is corroborated by data from other sources: In academic year 1962-1963, there were 1,061 postdoctoral fellows, both post-Ph.D. and post-M.D., in preclinical departments in all medical schools; by 1967- 1968 this group had increased to 1,383. During the same interval, the graduate student population of the departments increased from 4,105 to 7,421, and in the following year, it increased by yet another 570 students. Table 28 reveals the disproportionate roles of the private universities, par- ticularl~r their medical schools, in postdoctoral education. FINANCING POSTDOCTORAL EDUCATION As we have seen, two thirds of all postdoctoral fellows are in departments of medical schools, and 58 percent of these are, in turn, in clinical depart- ments. It may safely be assumed that all postdoctoral fellows find financial support, the going rate in 1970 for an initial fellowship being approximately $6,500 a year plus $500 for each dependent. Of those reported to us, three fourths were supported with funds provided through federal agencies. Somewhat unexpectedly, perhaps, postdoctoral trainees in the arts and sciences colleges were most frequently supported in this way (85 percent) and those in clinical departments least frequently (69 percent). Direct fellowships from federal agencies were received by 23 percent of the 5,223 postdoctoral appointees in the system, while 13 percent were the recipients of competitive fellowships from other sources. Again, reckoned on a per- centage rather than an absolute basis, it was postdoctoral appointees in the arts and sciences faculties who most frequently obtained federal fellowship support. Thus, fellowships from the Public Health Service were distributed in approximately equal numbers to postdoctoral appointees in the arts and sciences, preclinical, and clinical faculties, whereas National Science Foun- dation support was offered three times as frequently to fellows in the arts and sciences faculties as to both Ph.D.'s and M.D.'s studying with medical

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296 THE LIFE SCIENCES school faculties. Only a single National Science Foundation postdoctoral fellowship was reported by clinical department chairmen. This was com- pensated by the greater success of postdoctoral appointees in the clinical sciences, and to a lesser degree in the preclinical sciences, in finding other forms of fellowship support. However, the dominance of federal funds in supporting postdoctoral appointees rested not so much on the direct fellowship programs as on training grants and utilization of research funds, more than half of all post- doctoral appointees in all groups being so supported. Training grants made to individual departments or to multidisciplinary programs contributed most heavily to the support of postdoctoral appointees in the clinical sciences, somewhat less to those in the preclinical sciences, and to a much lesser extent to those in the arts and sciences. A third of all postdoctorate in the arts and sciences and in agriculture were supported by stipends made from the research grants of their mentors, as were a fourth of all postdoctoral appointees in the preclinical sciences; less than a tenth of those in the clinical sciences were so supported. Adequate data are not available to describe the specific manner in which foreign postdoctorate are supported. Since, however, they are ineligible under the terms of federal fellowship and training programs, it may be assumed that, in the main, they are sup- ported by stipends from research grants, nonfederal sources, and, occa- sionally, funds from their home countries. FOREIGN POSTDOCTORALS Figures 35 and 36 show the distribution of U.S. and foreign national post- doctoral fellows revealed by the departmental questionnaires. Thirty-eight percent of all postdoctoral fellows in the system were not of American origin, of whom about one sixth had obtained their doctoral degrees within the United States. About 30 percent of all postdoctoral fellows in the clinical departments were of foreign origin; virtually all of these may be presumed to have medical degrees. At the other extreme, 62 percent of all postdoctorate in the agriculture and forestry schools were foreign na- tionals, while 42 percent of the postdoctorate in the preclinical sciences departments and 41 percent in the life sciences departments of the colleges of arts and sciences in the universities had come from overseas. In our view, these figures are not seriously excessive. Like their Ameri- can equivalents, foreign postdoctoral fellows contributed significantly to research progress. Already rather well trained, they are capable of con- ducting semi-independent work in projects under the direction of faculty supervisors. They contribute stimulating new ideas not only for their own

THE ACADEMI 0 100 Agricu Itu ra I Sciences Anatomy Biochemistry Biology / Ecology Biophysics Bota ny Genetics Microbiology Pathology Ph a rmaco logy Physiology Zoology/ Entomology Clinical Medical ENDEAVOR IN THE LIFE SCIENCES 297 N u m be r of Postd octo ra I Fe l lows 200 300 400 500 79 : ::~:~:~:~:~:~:::~:~:~:~:::~:::~:: i:: i: :: _ 600 700 1 1 1 1 1 104 91 i 95 96 . . .. .. .. ..... ..... 1 1 1 1 1 lo 329 253 Foreign Nationals U.S. Nationals __ 619 1 1 1 200 400 600 800 1,000 1,200 1,400 1,600 1,800 2,000 N u m be r of Postd octo ra I Fe l l ows FIGURE 3 5 Distribution of postdoctoral fellows by discipline and national origin. Source: Survey of Academic Life Science Departments, National Academy of Sciences Committee on Research in the Life Sciences.

298 THE LIFE SCIENCES Arts and Sciences u' a) ._ ._ In ~Medical =Preclinical a) Medical Clinical 341 Foreign Nationals U.S. Nationals 429 1 l Arts and Sciences a) ._ ._ In ._ .O Medical Preclinical Medical Clinical Agricu Itu re 183 1 1 1 ~1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1,000 1,100 1,2001,300 1,400 Number of Postdoctoral Fellows FIGURE 36 Distribution of postdoctoral fellows in public and private universities, by type of school and national origin. Source: Survey of Academic Life Science Departments, National Academy of Sciences Committee on Research in the Life Sciences. immediate research but to the entire research group with which they are intimately connected. Frequently, they bring with them laboratory skills acquired in their laboratories of origin and divergent points of view learned in those laboratories. With their participation, the work goes more rapidly and progresses more satisfactorily, occasionally in unforeseen directions because of the differing viewpoints of the foreign fellows. They also con- tribute significantly to the education of American graduate students in the same environment. In view of the fact that 12 percent of all working U.S. life scientists in our sample are of foreign birth, including many of our most distinguished scientists, to return significant numbers of trained scien- tists to those countries seems only just. When postdoctorate return to their countries of origin, not only do they take with them an enhanced capability

THE ACADEMIC ENDEAVOR IN THE LIFE SCIENCES for research and education in some discipline, but they also go as ambas- sadors of good will who have had an intensive experience in American life under favorable circumstances. For those postdoctoral fellows who return to the developed nations- e.g., western Europe, Australia, Japan- there need be no concern about the relevance of their postdoctoral experience to life in their home coun- tries. However, postdoctoral fellows educated in the United States may return to developing nations only to find no market for the sophisticated science in which they have become skilled. This is most frequently true for postdoctoral fellows from India, Southeast Asia, and various African and Latin American countries. It is heartening to note that a significant fraction of postdoctoral fellows in the agricultural schools and in clinical departments are from the developing nations. Their experience here will make them more valuable citizens of their homelands, and their newly acquired skills can immediately and profitably be put to work. Although we cannot find it in ourselves to deny experience in enzyme kinetics, neurophysiology, or the more recondite aspects of the physio- logical bases of behavior to any qualified would-be postdoctoral student, we are painfully aware of the fact that significant numbers of such indi- viduals have returned to their homelands in developing countries only to become bitter and frustrated upon finding no opportunity to take advantage of their highly individualized educations. Numerous such individuals naturally attempt to remain in or return to the United States, in conflict with our national policy. We have no useful recommendations to make in this regard since we feel it unjust to deny further education in science to such qualified individuals, to condemn them to less intellectually rewarding careers than they might otherwise know, or to insist that only applied science and developmental research be conducted in developing nations and studied by their citizens while in our country. But the situation could be ameliorated, if only in some part, if before each such postdoctoral fellow is admitted to an American laboratory, the problem of his future is explored in advance, so that the circumstances are understood by his sponsors at home, by himself, and by the Americans who will receive him. FOREIGN INTERNS AND RESIDENTS The situation is even more complicated with respect to M.D.'s seeking advanced clinical training or clinical research experience. There can be no doubt that those who take advanced training as fellows in the clinical departments of American medical schools or who take internship or resi- dency training in American hospitals and then return to their native

300 THE LIFE SCIENCES countries will bring with them training and skills that will permit them to make valuable contributions to their compatriots. And there can be no doubt, also, that a large fraction of foreign M.D.'s who spend a year or two as postdoctoral fellows engaged in research in either clinical or science departments of American universities contribute to the programs of those departments and laboratories in much the same manner as do American- born postdoctoral fellows. For these reasons we think it appropriate that this nation welcome such individuals to our shores. Moreover, foreign graduates have become essential to the continued operation of a large number of hospitals. Foreign graduates now constitute 32.7 percent of all interns and residents in American hospitals. For those concerned not only with academic training but also with the delivery of health care to the American public to deplore this fact, when 11,000 other opportunities for interns and residents, one quarter of the national total, remain untaken, is unreasonable. The 14,500 foreign graduates filling these positions today make a large contribution to American life, even though most arrive less skilled and less knowledgeable than are American medical graduates at the same level of training. We are comfortable with the fact that this large number of foreign grad- uates is receiving advanced medical training in the United States, since, when they return to their home countries, they can make large contributions to life there after several years during which they had made extremely useful contributions to the delivery of medical care in the United States. Indeed, it is entirely evident that, at this time, this group of foreign nationals is indispensable to our system. However, we do require assurance that a large percentage of them will indeed return home in due course. Without them, 45 percent of all budgeted internships and residencies in American hospitals would go vacant, and this country would be the worse for such a disaster. Even now, 15 percent of the existing openings cannot be filled. We also recognize that, with a profound shortage of physicians to provide for the growing medical needs of the United States, one might well be tempted to welcome into our society immigrant physicians, par- ticularly those who have received advanced training in the United States, physicians from advanced nations, and physicians from developing nations with a surplus, if such there be. The bulk of the foreign postdoctoral physician group, however, comes from developing nations that suffer an acute lack of physicians for their own medical care programs. We can best reconcile the current situation with the general moral posture of the United States by urging that, after completion of their training, foreign physicians return to their native lands. These considerations are highly germane to the present study. Foreign

THE ACADEMIC ENDEAVOR IN THE LIFE SCIENCES graduates today fill more than 30 percent of all internships and residencies, and were we, by statute, to forbid their entry, it would be imperative that the supply of physicians from American medical schools be increased as rapidly as possible to compensate for this deficit. The capitalization cost of such a venture is a major consideration (30 new medical schools at $50 million each for a total of $1.5 billion), and it would be essentially impossible to meet the requirement for new faculty, a requirement that is barely being met at the current rate of growth of the medical education system. Additional approaches to provision of sufficient manpower to assure adequate levels of medical care-basic changes in medical school curricula, expansion of medical student bodies, more efficient use of para- medical personnel, and so on are outside the scope of this report but warrant early and serious consideration. Laboratory Space The aggregate net usable laboratory space reported to us by department chairmen was 13,423,000 fit; 31 percent of the space was allocated to departments in colleges of arts and sciences, 25 percent to agriculture and forestry schools, and 41 percent to medical schools (26 percent to pre- clinical and 15 percent to clinical departments). Two thirds of all this space was in universities under public auspices and one third in private universities. If the agriculture and forestry schools, common only to the public universities, are omitted from these totals, 43 percent of the labora- tory space was found in private institutions and 57 percent in the public institutions. This distribution is not seriously disproportionate, since, as shown in Table 30, space per faculty member is of the same order in both classes of institution. A total of 9,211 individual scientists provided information concerning the working laboratory space available to them, exclusive of office space or common service areas utilized by laboratory groups other than their own. A third of the total reported that they had less than 500 fit for their own work, a quarter had 500 to 750 fly, 13 percent 750 to 1,000 fit, 10.7 per- cent 1,000 to 1,250 ft2, and 5.4 percent 1,250 to 1,500 ft0. Three percent reported quarters varying from 1,500 to 2,500 fit each, and 4.8 percent of all scientists had laboratory space in excess of 2,500 ft~. Instances of both small and large laboratories were found in all dis- ciplines. Table 31 shows the mean net square footage available to the various classes of disciplinary departments for full-time faculty members. The unusually high figures quoted for genetics departments should be 301

302 THE LIFE SCIENCES TABLE 30 Research Laboratory Space by Type of School RESEARCH LABORATORY SPACE(FT') TYPE OF SCHOOL All Schools Public Schools Private Schools Per Department Per Faculty Per Member Department Per Faculty Per Per Faculty Member Department Member TOTAL, ALL TYPES 11,482781 11,38282011,699715 Agriculture ~13,283863 13,283863 Arts and Sciences b 18,4251,090 16,8341,03022,4151,225 Preclinical Medical 9,839909 9,7269609,980835 Clinical Medical 7,259413 5,7363958,907428 Other Health-Professional 6,355574 6,1895757,125570 Includes schools of forestry. b Includes engineering schools and schools of graduate studies. c Includes schools of dentistry. pharmacy, public health, and veterinary medicine. Source: Survey of Academic Life Science Departments, National Academy of Sciences Committee on Research in the Life Sciences. viewed in light of the fact that there are only 10 genetics departments in the sample. Contrary to the expectations of some, members of arts and sciences faculties enjoy some of the largest of the individual laboratories, and clinical scientists, by and large, operate in minimal laboratory space, with other disciplines ranged between. The mean laboratory space available to indi- vidual members of the faculties of public universities, which is somewhat larger than that of their counterparts in private universities, is largely accounted for by the space available to their agricultural and preclinical scientists. Available figures concerning space per department or per indi- vidual scientist in given disciplines are not genuine reflections of the space utilization appropriate to these disciplines, but rather are the consequence of historical trends, opportunities for construction, and related factors. It will be recognized, however, that working space in general is fairly tight. The mean academic research group consists of a professor and 7.5 other individuals. Since the mean space available per full-time faculty member is 781 ft" for the population as a whole, this provides only 90 It' per work- ing body. Since space distributions are surely uneven, as reported above, it is evident that many laboratories have decidedly less space per working individual a deplorable situation when one considers that modern plan- ning practice assumes the desirability of 150-200 It'' per body.

THE ACADEMIC ENDEAVOR IN THE LIFE SCIENCES 303 TABLE 31 Research Laboratory Space by Class of Department RESEARCH LABORATORY SPACE (FT2) CLASS OF Per Per Faculty DEPARTMENT Department Member ALL DEPARTMENTS 11,482781 Agricultural Sciences 13,283863 Anatomy 8,864757 Biochemistry and Nutrition 13,3521,215 Biology and Ecology 19,2351,058 Biophysics and Biomedical Engineering 18,1871,419 Botany 13,745853 Genetics 21,0002,100 Microbiology 10,4521,108 Pathology 10,593754 Pharmacology a 7,793886 Physiology 9,722938 Zoology and Entomology 18,092991 Clinical Sciences b 7,264416 Includes a college of pharmacy. b Includes a department of oral biology. Source: Survey of Academic Life Science Departments, National Academy of Sciences Committee on Research in the Life Sciences The Tools of Biological Research SPECIALIZED RESEARCH FACILITIES The impressions gained in considering the facilities and instruments used by individual scientists are fortified by examination of those available to entire departments in the biological sciences (Table 321. Biology, botany, and ecology departments are expected to have access to and utilize field areas, but it is a surprise that 27 percent of all pathology departments, 40 percent of genetics departments, and 12 percent of biochemistry depart- ments also indicate some such usage. Similarly, one would hardly expect 7 percent of biophysics departments to utilize an organism-identification service or 14 percent of biochemistry departments to make use of a marine biological station. High-pressure chambers, thought to be the special province of some physiologists and clinical scientists, found use among disciplinary departments of almost every category, but not among geneticists or in agricultural schools. To the authors of this report, the extent of use of programmed climate-controlled rooms across the entire spectrum of dis- ciplines came as a considerable surprise, and we were not aware that pri

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