Like other universities across the country, Northeastern is trying to beef up its research profile and attract more funding and top-quality students and faculty. That means hiring more PhDs for tenure-track faculty positions and not renewing the annual contracts of instructors who don’t have advanced degrees, according to this article from the Globe today.

It goes on to say that NU has hired 75 tenured or tenure-track faculty in the last three years and plans to hire 55 more in the next three years, but it declined to say how many instructors it’s letting go. Some students and professors at Northeastern are upset, saying that this goes against the university’s tradition of a more ‘real-world’ approach to teaching students. BU says it’s also planning to boost the ranks of its tenure-track research faculty over the next several years.

I hope these schools find the right balance: universities such as NU and BU offer important programs that, I believe, are best taught by people with years of experience in industry or other sectors of the working world outside of the ivory tower. I went through the science journalism master’s program at BU and valued what I learned from people who were (and still are) journalists in the trenches for years. I can’t imagine learning journalism from someone who’s spent his/her career in academia.

There must be science-related programs, such as biotechnology/drug development, where instructors with industry experience would be really valuable, more so than a PhD chemist who’s never worked for a drug company.

I think there’s still a need for more practical types of programs at universities (not all students will go into research careers) and I hope that growing the ranks of the tenure-track faculty doesn’t come at the expense of these programs.