The search process is so labor-intensive that many departments barely have the resources to devote to growing their ranks.

The competitive marketplace has further slowed efforts at growth.

"If you're lucky, you're able to find one right person each year," Gortler said. "In a year, if we can interview ten or 15 people, we might make one or two offers, and those people themselves might have ten or 15 offers."

In addition, most departments conduct multiple searches for senior faculty every year just to break even.

"We hire between 20 and 30 individuals every year, but we lose 20 or 30 to retirement or resignation, so we just run in place," Fisher said.

But despite these obstacles, deans insist that Knowles' efforts are starting to pay off.

"We are starting to see the consequences of a lot of very hard work searching," Pedersen says. "We're not looking for a larger faculty tomorrow, but over the course of ten years we're hoping for a substantial growth."