Academically, however, the situation is different because professors achieve tenure that offers them life-long security.  But the academic world imitates the corporate world in some ways since many professors look for opportunities to change universities and vie for more money, new challenges, life in a big city or research assignments that they can’t obtain at their current college.

Since Latino professors are often a decided minority and many colleges and universities strive to diversify their staff, Hispanic professors, particularly in STEM areas, are often in high demand.

College teachers change jobs for a variety of reasons including “money, a more desirable location, more prestigious institution or an institution that is a better fit for their career plans,” explained John Moder, the chief operating officer of the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities (HACU) and former president of St. Mary’s University in San Antonio, TX from 1988 to 1999.

Changing colleges is ultimately an individual professor’s decision based on one’s career goals, Moder says.  “Some fall in love with teaching and don’t want to be pushed to do research.  Others get to do research, and teaching is the price you pay,” he said  

Feeling little loyalty from companies, many corporate employees seize the opportunity to change jobs before falling victim to downsizing.  But universities change at a much slower pace and are more “conservative” than corporations, Moder suggests.  

What’s changing at higher institutions is tenured positions are “being pared down and are harder to come by,” Moder said.  The numbers of part-time and adjunct lecturers, who are paid a fraction of what tenured professor earn, have been spiking, except at the few institutions with well-endowed investments like Ivy League and elite colleges.  Public colleges, mid-range colleges and community colleges rely more on temporary work forces, making changing institutions a much easier decision. 

Moder concludes that the prevailing factors for changing colleges include tackling a series of questions including:  Does the professor like what he’s doing?  Can the professor envision staying at the college for the next 20 years?  Does the new opportunity look better and offer more challenges than the current position?  Is the new college located in a more appealing part of the country where the cost of living isn’t dramatically higher?  Is there a better chance of obtaining tenure at the new college?

Politics plays a major role at obtaining tenure and must be considered in making any move. “Typically, a professor understands the politics of the current institution, and the new one is a blank hole.  You don’t know what you’re getting into until you get there,” Moder said, insinuating that there’s always a risk in changing campuses.

Moving from a rural area with a low-cost of living to expensive urban metropolises such as San Francisco and New York can be particularly risky.  “Will the added salary cover the additional cost of living?” is a critical question that must be addressed, Moder suggests. Do I want to be where the action is and is it affordable? are other queries to address.

Multicultural professors may well have an edge in switching colleges.  “If you’re a minority and you’re good at your field and interested in moving, you’re going to have more prospects,” Moder said. However, higher education has been shrinking staff and administration, so opportunities are being reduced despite the interest in boosting minority staff.  

Other Latino professors prefer urban life rather than moving to a rural campus where Hispanic culture is often unknown or considered foreign.

Despite the fact that some college teachers seek greener pastures, some professors are quite content to stay put and use that as a springboard for advancement.  

Take Cordelia Ontiveros who serves as interim dean of the College of Engineering at California State Polytechnic University-Pomona.  In the 30 years that Ontiveros has taught and administrated in the Cal State system, she’s been a professor, a department chair, an associate vice president, a senior director in the Cal State system-wide office, an associate dean and an interim dean.

Ontiveros considered each job “meaningful and intellectually stimulating.”  As a faculty member, she saw the direct impact of her daily work on students, and as an administrator she noted that “the policies and programs make an impact on a broader scale.”

Though she has served in the dean’s office of engineering for the last decade, she has faced a series of internal challenges including handling the Engineering Advising Center, the Engineering First Year Experience and Project Lead the Way, a national K-12 STEM curriculum.  “Since there was so much opportunity, I’ve been happy to stay in the same office for the last ten years,” she exclaimed.

Yet Ontiveros candidly admits that when she received tenure, she was the only Latina in the engineering department, and more than 30 years later, she remains so.  Though she described the department as supportive and collegial, “sometimes a feeling of isolation” surfaces.  To counteract that feeling, Ontiveros immerses herself in a host of professional organizations including SHPE (Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers) and HACU. 

Moreover, Ontiveros notes that Cal Poly Pomona serves as a Hispanic-Serving Institution, and the enrollment at the College of Engineering recently climbed to 30 percent Latino students.  “Developing programs to support student success is part of being a role model,” she noted.

But Emir Jose Macari, the dean of engineering at the University of New Orleans, represents the Latino professor who moves on to move up.  He’s been a professor of engineering at the University of Puerto Rico, moved on to Georgia Tech as a professor of engineering where he won the prestigious Presidential Faculty Fellowship, was hired by LSU as chairman of the civil and environmental engineering department and as an endowed professor, and moved onto California State University-Sacramento as dean of engineering and computer science before landing at the University of New Orleans.

In Macari’s viewpoint, “It’s very difficult to grow in a university.  You need to move elsewhere to go to the next levels.   There are cases I know of people who stay, but they are the exception.”

Politics, he suggests, is extremely thick in academia, and professors in his view, accumulate “baggage.”  Professors, and in particular, department chairs can alienate staff, reject staff for tenure and the politics in academics can engender enmity.  

In each case where Macari transferred from one college to another, he also was offered more money and further responsibility.

Moreover, Macari is married with three daughters who were in high school and middle schools during some of these moves, necessitating the entire family making adjustments and adapting to another city.

On one hand, being Latino, helped because colleges want to interview an array of diversified candidates.  But once you’re an applicant, “you’re competing equally,” he said. Diversity opens the door, but the Latino candidates must earn the position due to his or her credentials and interviewing skills.

Switching from one college to another invariably boils down to whether the move advances a professor’s career while enhancing their life.  The dominant reason for opting to change colleges is “how the move is going to fit the trajectory that they want for themselves,” Moder observed. •