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Information about individual faculty

October 2010  (updated 10-7-10; new highlighted)

Quick list of links here (added 10-7-10)

• List of all CU-Boulder faculty submitted: lists of faculty (Excel)
• Counts of CU-Boulder faculty, by program, with list of those leaving or added since 2006
• Diagram or decision tree and summary table of the NRC criteria for new, core, and associated faculty
• CU-Boulder's response rates to the faculty survey, by program
• Searchable database of PhD final and comprehensive exam committees and dissertation supervision

We submitted to NRC lists of faculty (Excel) associated with each CU-Boulder program. In most instances, each faculty member was associated with a single program. It is possible, however, for an individual faculty member to be associated with more than one program (e.g., Professor Jones is in both the psychology program and the  neuroscience program).

Selection and categorization

 NRC criteria specified faculty affiliated with CU-Boulder in fall 2006, with dissertation committee activity in the prior five years.  Each selected faculty member was categorized, per NRC's instructions, as either "core," "new," or "associate."

• "Core" means that a person is in the program and has had dissertation committee involvement.   Core may include emeritus faculty.
• "New" means in the program, hired within the last two years, and has insufficient committee involvement.
•  "Associate" means has committee involvement but is not in the program.

Summary of NRC rules (as implemented at CU-Boulder) on faculty lists  [added 10-7-10]

• TTT (tenured/tenure-track) are listed if and only if had dissertation committee activity (any in 5 years) or were new. Listed as core or new.
• Emeritus listed as core if and only if dissertation advisor 2003 or later
• Others appointed in the program/unit (e.g., adjunct, research associate) listed
  • As core if and only if dissertation advisor or on more than 1 committee in 5 years
  • As associate if and only if on only 1 committee
  • Not at all if on no committees
• Others with a campus appointment but not appt in program (e.g., TTT faculty in other programs) listed as associate if and only if advisor
• Those with no formal affiliation with the campus – not listed

A total of 959 individual faculty members were represented in CU-Boulder's NRC submission. Because a single person can be in more than one program, the number of person-by-program combinations is greater--1,113. Of the 959 "unduplicated" faculty members, 85% were in one program, 13% were in two, and 2% were in three. Of the 1,113 "duplicated," 76% were reported to NRC as core, 18% as associate, and 6% as new. Not all TTT (tenured and tenure track) faculty in programs were necessarily reported to NRC, because some did not meet the committee criteria.

 Counts of CU-Boulder faculty, by program, are provided in an Excel file, which includes a table showing the total number of faculty reported to NRC, with breakdowns by category (core & new, associate). The Excel also includes a list of core and new faculty who have left CU-Boulder since 2006, and a list of faculty who are new to CU-Boulder since then.  This information can help a program describe how its faculty differs from the faculty on which the NRC 2010 rankings are based. 

Technical!  For additional information, see the category definitions on the "Info" sheet of the Excel of CU-Boulder faculty counts, by program (Excel). In addition, a diagram or decision tree and a summary table of the NRC criteria and process of assigning the categories are available. For reference purposes, a searchable database of PhD final and comprehensive exam committees and dissertation supervision is also available. Searches may be done by student name and/or faculty name.  The database has not been updated since its use in developing faculty lists for NRC. 

The survey of faculty

NRC used our submitted faculty lists to survey new and core faculty members in the field, asking about their publishing career, grant activity, and the importance of various factors and quality in their field. NRC then gathered information on faculty members' honors and awards, and on publications and citations from ISI, the Institute for Scientific Information (now Thomson Reuters). PBA submitted considerable data to NRC on each of the CU-Boulder faculty who would receive a questionnaire, including information on publications. NRC also collected CV's, and used them to count books published in humanities disciplines. Except for books, NRC did not actually use publication listings on the survey except to verify ISI counts.

Some measures used by NRC, such as the percentage of faculty with grants, are based only on faculty who responded to the faculty survey. CU-Boulder's overall response rate to the faculty survey was 84%. Nationwide, 72% of faculty responded. CU-Boulder's response rates to the faculty survey, by program, are available in an Excel file, which also includes a list of all faculty invited to respond (see the "Respondent list" tab of the Excel).

Allocations -- Warning, super technical, of interest primarily to Neuroscience and Cognitive Science

Allocations are essentially weights for a faculty member's publications/citation averages in each program an individual faculty member is reported in. Most faculty listed are listed in one and only one program; for (most of) them the allocation will be 1.0, or 100%. These are especially relevant for faculty involved in Neuroscience and in Cognitive Science.

Core and associated faculty who are listed in multiple programs were assigned an "allocation" by NRC based on a formula applied to data on the faculty list (classification, N of chairs, N of total committees). The allocations for an individual cannot sum to more than 100% over programs, and were used as weights on the individual's publications, citations, honors, etc. in calculating averages for the program (not to be confused with the weights used to compute the final program ratings).

• The allocation formula gives higher weight to core than to associated, higher weight to being a chair than to committees per se, and higher weight to more committees. It used the actual number of committees reported on the faculty list.
• All averages were expressed as "per part of a person." So if Professor Jones's allocation is .60 in psychology and .40 in neuroscience, she will contribute (.40 x her total publications etc.) / (.40 person) to the neuroscience average.
• Once NRC assigned the allocations, the institution could override them, setting each one anywhere between zero and one as long as the sum for an individual over programs is no more than one.

The faculty list (Excel) shows both a "raw" allocation (see column "AllocRaw" on the "List-All" tab), which was our best guess as to what NRC would calculate from data listed for the individual, and a "modified" allocation (see column "AllocMod"), which we used for overrides. The modified allocation sets the allocation to a maximum of 10% for everyone listed for Neuroscience and Cognitive Science. The publication and citation averages for the program should calculate the same with all faculty at 10%, as with all faculty at 100%. In addition, the modified allocation increases the allocation in the "home" programs (most predominately Psychology and Integrative Physiology) to compensate. This reduces the variance among allocations within the home program, so that the per-person publication/citations of people active in Neuroscience and Cognitive Science get almost as much weight in Psychology, Integrative Physiology, etc. as those of people who are only in the home program.  There are some exceptions to this practice, but that was our goal.

• Faculty listed as new on multiple programs were assigned allocations that equally split their publications, citations etc. among their several programs. 

Last revision 10/07/10