The stated desire of the UNC system’s strategic plan to hire more “rainmaker” faculty in the next five years will bring valuable benefits, but these faculty members need to be hired in a manner that maintains equity across system campuses.
Rainmakers are faculty who are hired with an elevated level of prestige, and garner recognition for their research that results in external research funding, university attention and the ability to attract other talented researchers to the institution.
The plan, in draft form, says 24 of these faculty members should be hired during the next five years.
Depending on each school’s strengths, rainmakers will be recruited for certain departments to spur more research funding.
Not only will the benefits of these faculty members be seen directly in their individual department through awarded grant money and more, but they will indirectly benefit their campus as a whole, as well.
The attention equates to more money to be spread across the whole campuses. But it is ultimately up to the administration to ensure that these funds aren’t just funneled back into a specific department.
Although the first draft of the plan did not go into detail, it is important to keep cross-campus equity in mind when distributing these 24 rainmaker hires.
If the purpose of hiring rainmakers is to garner national attention, it’s important to bring these faculty members into schools that have great programs that might not otherwise attract this attention.
With budgets as tight as they are today, rainmaker faculty are a hefty investment that, if balanced well, have the potential to benefit each individual institution and the system as a whole.
