The following appeared in a letter from the faculty committee to the president of Seatown University:
A study conducted at nearby Oceania University showed that faculty retention is higher when professors are offered free tuition at the university for their own college-aged children. Therefore, Seatown should institute a free-tuition policy for its professors for the purpose of enhancing morale among the faculty and luring new professors.
Write a response in which you discuss what specific evidence is needed to evaluate the argument and explain how the evidence would weaken or strengthen the argument.
There can be many ways of handling this issue and one needs to first underhand a few key areas before making this decision
The first component would be identifying the number of candidates who apply to the university and see the rejection rates of those who have an extremely good statement of purpose and whom the university believes would have been selected had there been more number of seats offered for the course they applied in. If the percentage is extremely high, it would imply that many good candidates who apply will have a lesser chance of getting in which would reduce the number of good candidates in the college if the policy is implemented
The second point to be considered would be the productivity of the professors. Many need to teach as well as work on research problems during their spare time. Studies have told that more content a professor is, the better are the chances of producing quality research material. If more number of quality papers is published, the academic standing of the university would increase leading to more number of good candidates applying to them. This would also increase the funding for the university and help in strengthening the university even further
The committee should also see whether successful universities like MIT and Stanford have got such schemes. Identifying whether the competition is following them to be ahead would be a major talking point for discussion. If it is found that they are having such reservations in their admission system, it could be deemed as a plus point to implement the same for the university. On the other hand, if they are extremely strict and believe all students should get into the university on their own merit, then it would work against the implementation of the policy
The final thing that should be considered is whether such a quota system is needed, then how many seats should be reserved and whether all faculty members should have this option or whether only experienced members who have contributed a lot to the universities success should get precedence. This could then work as a motivation factor for faculties who do not have any seats reserved for their children since they would have to work harder to ensure that their children would have a secured future by having a confirmed seat. This would increase the number of publications and research papers and would lead to an increased reputation of the university
If the findings from all the above are considered favourable to the letter, the the policy should be implemented but if it is not showing any improvement in the reputation of the university, then I believe that the policy in the letter should not be implemented