Faculty Vitality Over The Academic Life Cycle And Its Influence Mechanisms

Academic vitality is the everlasting quest of faculty members throughout the career,which is also an internal guarantee for universities' competitive strength,and meanwhile a strategic key to a nation's long-term educational development.For an individual faculty member,the core of his or her career is how to keep sustained productivity in teaching,research and service activities,because all the important issues,such as promotion,funding,rewards,recognition,etc.are all highly related to it.For a university,how to inspire faculty vitality means how to fulfill its tri-functions-talent-training,scientific research and social services,therefore,the institutional focus is always on how to build a team of vigorous faculty and staff members and how to enhance their knowledge and skills,as well as optimize human resources.Nowadays with our country ushering into a crucial era of innovation-driven development,how to carry out research programs centered on national economic and social requirements and how to cultivate qualified innovative and entrepreneurial talents are also dependent on a high-level contingent of leading academics.These concerns can be found in the central government,local governments as well as universities' outlines for education reform and development in recent years,in which they all make how to promote faculty vitality the key work and long-ranging objectives.Therefore,how to understand and take effective measures to inspire faculty vitality is not only of great urgency,but also of practical significance.From a multidisciplinary perspective of life course,this dissertation has adopted quantitative and qualitative research approaches to explore the characteristics,tendency and influencing mechanisms of faculty vitality over the academic career.Research questions include what are the changing features of faculty vitality over the career;how individual-centered factors,such as age,gender,interests,motivation over time produce a vital academic career;when and to what degree the institutional factors play an incentive or disincentive role in shaping faculty values and meeting the professional vitality needs of faculty;how social environment interact with faculty members' academic development.The general framework and main points are as follows:Firstly,after a meta-analysis of academic life cycle models mainly conducted in the West,the author has made use of a large scale questionnaire survey of faculty members from 56 research universities with graduate schools in China to investigate the changing features and its influencing factors of faculty vitality over the academic career.It is verified that there is no linear relationship between age and faculty vitality and age is not a predictor of faculty vitality over a career path.Rather fluctuating,cumulative and stratifying features are demonstrated.With other variables controlled,personal attributes,disciplines,ranks,etc.are all significant factors,which indicate that the interplay of individual,structural and historical factors determine to a high degree the growth of an academician.Secondly,analysis of the in-depth,semi-structured interview data has revealed that faculty's values,interests,motivation,goals and satisfaction will change in different career stages,altogether affecting faculty vitality over the entire career.In other words,faculty career development is intertwined with personal maturation.Thirdly,taking the promotion as a typical organizational factor and a critical event along the academic journey,the author has established a database of 136 faculty members with 2371 person-year items to probe into this institutional mechanism influencing faculty vitality.An event history analysis has found that when other variables controlled,past research quantity and years in rank play an important role in the advancement from assistant professor to associate professor,while from associate to full professor,past research quality and years in rank are the two most important predictors.It has also been shown that institutional policies have both incentive and disincentive effects.Fifthly,based on a comparison of three cohorts entering the academic profession in the 1980s,1990s and 2000s respectively,the author has found that the broad historical transition and social change has exerted considerable impact on their early education,career choices,professional training,scientific resources and research conditions,which led to their vitality variation and further shaped their divergent career trajectories.Finally,conclusion and discussions about some policies pertinent to faculty academic development have been made based on the above analyses.It is proposed that faculty classification management should take into consideration the diversified connotation and life cycle features of faculty vitality,formulating multi-level and multi-type faculty development plans to give them individualized support.Meanwhile,it is suggested that age as a policy tool should be cautiously used in academic rules and regulations.