University Development of Young Engineering Faculty

Engineering schools throughout the United States are beginning to experience a decline in the number and quality of American-born students pursuing the PhD in engineering. Also, several of the young persons obtaining the PhD are accepting nonteaching positions upon graduation. Both of these trends are a cause for concern by engineering faculties with civil engineering being no exception. In view of the increasing shortage of young engineering faculty candidates, one questions how the engineering schools are confronting this problem. The role of the universities in developing their young engineering faculty is explored, and how effective current practices are in accomplishing this task is examined.