GSOM Faculty Development and Promotion Opportunities

The GSOM faculty development program reflects the GSOM expansion plans both in size and spectrum of the degree programs, as well as the academic needs of its professional groups. Also, the faculty development follows the requirements of international institutional accreditations and the key role of a high caliber faculty crucial for leadership on the global marketplace.

Faculty at GSOM degree programs is comprised from four sources:
  1. full-time (FT) faculty;
  2. part-time (PT) faculty;
  3. visiting faculty;
  4. guest lecturers and other temporary instructors.

GSOM has 86 full-time equivalent (FTE) faculty positions that are occupied by FT (67 professors), and PT and visiting faculty. To support successful implementation of the plans for GSOM degree programs development we need to recruit additionally about 15 new professors for FT position to have by 2012 about 80 FT professors, and 40 PT (also from other Faculties of St. Petersburg University) and visiting professors each semester. These numbers do not include any replacement for various reasons (e.g. retirement, reallocation, etc.) of any current FT professors (estimated as 20% turnover by 2012), which may bring the need for new FT hires from 15 to 25-30 persons. This means that GSOM may need to recruit 5-8 new FT faculty members each year.

Recruiting plans must also strongly reflect the strategic direction towards Graduate School with high international profile.  It means that all new hires for FT faculty positions should be well experienced and/or have excellent potential in at least three qualifications:
  1. teaching in both  Bachelor and graduate programs (Master, MBA/EMBA and Ph.D.);
  2. doing research and/or developing cases of the international quality level;
  3. a high proficiency in English – both spoken and written.

The recruiting plans are meant to be implemented by all 7 academic departments / professional groups at GSOM. They all  shall search extensively for international professors and then shall successfully integrate the new hires in the work within these respective professional groups.

While Strategy, Finance, Marketing and Organizational Behavior groups all have evident needs for additional faculty, especially urgent needs are in the areas of IT in Management and Operations Management.

GSOM has a well structured communicated to faculty, and continuously implemented set of  the policies for the faculty development and promotion. However, to comply fully with EQUIS and AACSB requirements, a new edition of the GSOM By-Laws and Policies was completed by the end of 2007. It introduced basic policies for development of a tenure system in compliance with the Russian federal legislation and regulations and with the St. Petersburg University Charter.

Basic requirements at the faculty-related policies at GSOM state about 150 hours of lectures per academic year at degree programs of any level, and a faculty-member’s responsibility to produce high-quality “codified knowledge”. The latter is understood as a variety of academic publications – from study cases and articles from peer review journals to textbooks and research monographs. Due to special importance for GSOM, a publication at top research journals in Russia and internationally makes the key criteria for faculty promotion opportunities at GSOM.

GSOM will continue to annually allocate outstanding funds to support individual and group training of the faculty and GSOM executive managers at the world leading business schools like Harvard, LBS, Sloan, Haas etc, to ensure participation in the major conferences of the international societies (e.g., EMAC, Ibis, EBEN), to organize seminars and in-house training for professional learning by the faculty members, and to improve their English language professional communication skills.

GSOM is heavily interested in performance-oriented approach by each faculty member, with the key focus on excellence in teaching and research which will be measured also through international recognition of the faculty-member’s achievements.

For recruiting, developing, and retaining of the best Russian and international faculty, GSOM shall urgently introduce a system of Chairs. Additionally to boosting  the reputation and financial privileges for  prominent scholars with this status, the system of Chairs serves an important tool for attracting and retaining of the best professors.  It will also motivate highly talented Doctoral students to develop a successful academic career as a continuation of the Ph.D. program training planned to be launched in the western format.