<p>Just been reading some facts about Emory and noticed the huge endowment emory has; it even has a larger endowment than Oxford in the UK and had the tenth largest endowment in the U.S.</p>
<p>However, I can't answer one question: How does Emory spend such a huge endowment? On what does it spend this huge endowment?</p>
<p>Anybody have some insights on this?</p>
<p>New dorms (best of any school my son ever visited), new buildings (outstanding facilities), beautiful campus, outstanding teaching and research faculty (students have few complaints with quality of teaching and/or quality of researchers). I am most impressed (especially in the sciences) with the fact Emory has two tracts for promotion as a professor, either lecture or research and this markedly improves the quality of student education. Many science class professors (especially introductory science and organic classes) will answer online questions and remain online past midnight to answer last minute student questions the day prior to an exam. I think this speaks to the quality and the commitment of the faculty to education. Emory also has a very generous scholarship program which attracts many of the brightest high school students to Emory. Emory spends their large endowment in a way which benefits all students. Truly a GREAT school!!</p>
<p>Yeah, gotta agree on that despite how critical I am normally (I have experienced the benefits of having awesome lecture track faculty). They are working on investing it in new initiatives that make Emory better. Not to mention, this place is pretty solid at fundraising, even through toughest parts of the recession, Campaign Emory did well, and that money will be partially go to the endowment which is awesome. In fact, I think the campaign is very specific in its goals and reflects well what the endowment is spent on. Here’s a link telling about the campaign and each entity it is attempting to fund: [Campaign</a> Emory | Leadership Takes Courage](<a href=“Emory 2036 - About the Campaign”>Emory 2036 - About the Campaign)</p>
<p>Sorry if I’m hijacking this post, but can you explain a little more about lecture-track faculty? How many of the faculty are lecture-track? And would you say that even for research-oriented faculty, (undergraduate) teaching is relatively more important at Emory than at other schools?</p>
<p>Also, how much of our tuition money goes toward professor salaries?</p>
<p>Those are unanswerable questions. However, I think lecture track has kind of proliferated (and is perhaps more typical in) in some science departments (like biology and chemistry) where there has been a push to improve teaching quality. Scientific research is extremely time consuming (not to say non-scientific research is…but scientific may indeed may take more time out of classroom prep. and attention). I think other peers have somewhat of a lecture track, but it seems Emory really takes it seriously. These are the teachers that tend to win awards and are encouraged (or even charged) to implement new pedagogical approaches in a dept. I think the mark of lecture track at Emory may be more profound than at other places. For example, gen. chem sections are of relatively high quality compared to peers because the lecture track faculty dominate the sections (as in 4/5 to 4/6 sections go to these faculty members). It is also responsible for producing Weinschenks, Sorias, Eisens, Becks, and Spells, all who are known for great teaching. Point is, I think lecture track has a profound impact on departments not typically known for great teaching. </p>
<p>Tuition+profs. salary: Questionable. A lot of profs. get most of their money from research grants. Compared to how much goes into facilities, activities, etc., I bet the amount going specifically to their salaries are small because they can get income elsewhere.</p>
<p>Essentially lecture track faculty are those who are paid just to teach, and do not do any significant amount of research. They might collaborate with other professors in research once in a while, but they certainly don’t run their own research group or lab. These people have titles such as instructor, lecturer, or senior lecturer, and aren’t tenured. They usually end up being the best teachers because they have no research obligations. Some examples here are Bing in physics, Weinschenk in orgo, and Banerjee in econ. They are especially popular here in the Chem department, which has at 7 of them to run most of gen chem + lab and orgo + lab. </p>
<p>The research track faculty are the assistant, associate, and full profs you usually hear about in universities, with the latter two usually tenured. These people run their own research teams and for them teaching is often an extra assignment as part of their position, with research usually being their primary focus. And since research is already so time-consuming, they are often left with less time to commit to teaching. </p>
<p>The lecturers will just get paid a fixed salary from their respective departments for teaching, while profs will get a base salary from their department + money from grants, so the more grants the higher pay. And if you wanna do the math, tuition here costs $21,200 per semester, and the average student takes 16 credit hours. So for a normal 4 credit hour class, the student is paying $5,300 for that class. So for a smaller language class of 14 students that’s $74K going into the class. For mid size science class of 80, that’s $424K. And since even the highest paid profs here (the full professors who make an average of about $150K a year) might make $74K a semester from base salary + their grant money with everyone else making way less, there conclusion would be what bernie12 guessed; most of the money doesn’t go to the profs salary. And as expensive as Emory is, apparently even those who are paying full price is still getting about a 15% discount because of all the extra overhead it takes to run the university.</p>
<p>For the last several years, the Emory Development Office has been conducting “Campagin Emory” to further increase the endowment by $1.6 billion. The campaign is coming to a successful conclusion and the funds will be used in accordance with the university’s Strategic Plan:</p>
<p>“Campaign funding priorities for every school, unit, and program of the University support the plan’s themes: strengthening faculty distinction, preparing engaged scholars, creating community and engaging society, confronting the human condition, and exploring new frontiers in science and technology.”</p>
<p>In sum, it will be devoted to improving all of the following: professors, students, interactions with society, and research. Specifically, Emory College is adding 100 faculty members - without increasing the size of the student population.</p>
<p>[Campaign</a> Emory | Leadership Takes Courage](<a href=“Emory 2036 - About the Campaign”>Emory 2036 - About the Campaign)</p>
<p><a href=“Emory 2036 - About the Campaign”>Emory 2036 - About the Campaign;