Thompson says the proportion of members of underrepresented minority groups would likely rise if some of these Faculty members were to retire.
In his letter to the Faculty, Knowles also links the lack of turnover to an overall rise in the proportion of tenured Faculty members to their non-tenured colleagues.
Still, Knowles says the slow turnover has not yet had an appreciable effect.
"I don't think that the number of professors over 70 is large enough to frustrate their younger colleagues, any more than a 50- or a 60-year old colleague can," he wrote in an e-mail message. "And in most departments there are empty Faculty positions, so junior Faculty promotion is not blocked."
Harder Issues
"It's true that we don't have recourse in the sense that people can't be forced out," says Thompson. "[But] we've talked to departments, and encouraged them to make sure that every Faculty member is equally sharing the load."
In extreme cases, the administration does have ways to indicate to professors that their time of greatest usefulness has passed.
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