Nation needs recovery plan for science faculty jobs

Over the past few months, many graduate students and postdocs have been receiving letters from department chairs apologetically explaining that the faculty job search at Institution X has been canceled. State and private universities are facing declining tax revenues and falling endowments, and are unwilling to raise tuition on newly impoverished families. From Harvard to small local colleges, junior faculty searches are being put on hold as the nation suffers its worst economic downturn in most of our lifetimes.