Predicting faculty job centrality in communication

Data from 1,581 faculty members affiliated with 98 doctoral-granting Communication programs in the United States were analyzed to determine normative publication rates and predictors of position centrality in the faculty hiring network. The Communication Institute for Online Scholarship (CIOS) database was used to measure publication frequency in refereed journals. Position centrality was measured using a Communication program’s relative position in the hiring network as established by Barnett, Danowski, Feeley, and Stalker (2010). The average publication frequencies by academic rank were as follows: assistant professors averaged 2.29 articles (N = 441, SD = 3.29); associate professors averaged 6.69 articles (N = 497, SD = 5.77); professors averaged 10.92 articles (N = 542, SD = 12.09). Results from multiple regression analyses indicate the number of publications for faculty members and position centrality of where one earned his or her doctoral degree significantly predicted current position centrality. Publication numbers for one’s advisor and year of earned doctorate did not emerge as significant predictors of position centrality.