CHAPEL HILL - Dramatic expansion of higher education in the late 1960s through the 1970s to accommodate the "boomer" population -- the 76 million Americans born between 1946 and 1964 -- led to a surge in new faculty hires. Like a pig in a python, this cohort of faculty is now rapidly approaching retirement age.

By late 2003, the average or typical full-time faculty member in U.S. higher education was 50 years of age, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. Fully one third of all faculty in post-secondary institutions were over age 55 in 2003.

In 2006, 60 percent of all UNC system faculty were aging baby boomers, that is, between age 42 and 60. Thirty seven percent were 55 or older, and 16 percent were pre-boomers, that is, 61 or older. Only 19 percent were under 40 in 2006.

For the UNC system, this impending wave of faculty retirees constitutes a major problem. None of the 16 constituent universities has devised succession plans for soon-to-be retiring faculty. Nor have they devoted any attention to how such plans might be financed.

Given projected increases in university enrollment in North Carolina -- an estimated 80,000 new students -- over the next 10 years, strategies are urgently needed to address the faculty succession problem. Because the faculty age profiles of other colleges and universities are similar to the UNC system's, competition for new faculty talent will be fierce.

Recruiting replacement faculty will be particularly challenging for the system's smaller campuses, especially the historically black universities. These institutions do not have the financial resources to compete for top-notch replacement faculty. The system's larger, predominantly white campuses are more likely to have endowment funds and access to private sources of capital for faculty recruitment. But, given the size of the pool of retirees-to-be, all UNC campuses will need financial assistance from the state to effectively respond to the aging faculty challenge.

Assuming that the requisite resources can be mobilized, the wave of faculty retirements represents a propitious opportunity for all of the system's universities, especially the predominantly white campuses, to diversify their faculties. However, this will only be possible if universities pursue a global recruitment strategy aimed at attracting the best domestic and international talent to fill future faculty vacancies.

Recruiting international talent may be difficult in the current post-9/11 climate, where it is increasingly more challenging for foreign nationals to immigrate to the U.S. Without a serious revaluation of post-9/11 immigration reforms, especially the recently reauthorized U.S.A. Patriot Act of 2001 and the Enhanced Border Security and Visa Reform Act of 2002, higher education institutions will find it more daunting to attract international talent, especially with the founding and expansion of high-quality graduate programs and knowledge-intensive industries abroad.

To avert a hiring crisis, UNC system campuses must move quickly to devise faculty succession plans and to incorporate these plans into their capital campaigns. They must also develop communication strategies for educating the legislature about the need for a replacement faculty fund, and educating Congress that immigration reform legislation needs to be more sensitive to the demand for international faculty in higher education in the years ahead.

And the UNC system, perhaps working through the graduate schools on the 16 campuses, must encourage and provide incentives for undergraduate students, especially students of color, to pursue advanced degrees that qualify them for university teaching positions.

(James H. Johnson Jr. is William Rand Kenan Jr. distinguished professor of entrepreneurship at UNC-Chapel Hill's Kenan-Flagler Business School.)

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