David S. P. Hopkins

Five years of legal physician-assisted suicide in Oregon.

To the Editor: Physician-assisted suicide for terminally ill residents of Oregon has been legal since October 1997.1 Although it has been challenged several times in court and by a referendum, the ...

Faculty Early-Retirement Programs

This paper formulates a demographic flow model that can be used to analyze the effects of university early-retirement policies on faculty appointment rates and rank and age distributions. In addition, it discusses a specific early-retirement plan designed to induce less productive older members of a faculty into voluntary withdrawal while offering significantly less encouragement to their more productive colleagues. The model is then used to examine the extent to which this plan is likely to achieve its intended results, namely an increase in the flow rate of new appointments, a reduction in the number of older faculty members in service, and a reduction in total personnel costs. Both short-run and equilibrium effects are analyzed with specific reference to the situation at Stanford University.

Analysis of Faculty Appointment, Promotion, and Retirement Policies.

A mathematical model of faculty flow was used to predict the effects of new operating policies on the age and rank composition of a large group of university faculty. Specific policies analyzed with this model include changing promotion rates for nontenure faculty, extending service times in nontenure, and implementing an early retirement program for tenure faculty.

Computing Optimal Solutions for Infinite-Horizon Mathematical Programs with a Transient Stage

This paper studies multistage mathematical programs with an arbitrary transient phase followed by an infinite stationary phase with linear constraints and objective. It presents conditions tinder which a derived linear program will determine an optimal solution to the infinite problem. These conditions are general and may be validated by simple algebraic tests perhaps solving a finite linear program. No topological restrictions are placed on the model.

The relation of faculty academic activity to financing sources in a department of medicine.

Abstract Academic medical departments confront important changes in funding sources and consequent pressure to change faculty activities. Valid information has often been lacking concerning the exi...

A Model for Long-Range University Budget Planning under Uncertainty

A linear control model of a university budget is presented as an aid to developing optimal strategies for dealing with major exogenous uncertainties. The specific uncertainties treated are those associated with inflation, endowment returns, and fund-raising. The model seeks to stabilize budget growth by adhering as closely as possible to prescribed limits for certain financial ratios, such as the ratio of the budget to the endowment. Sample runs for Stanford University are given, along with an analysis of the financial effects of varying the level of investment risk carried by the endowment.

Duality overlap in infinite linear programs

Abstract This paper presents an infinite linear program with the optimal value of the maximizing problem strictly greater than the optimal value of the minimizing problem.

An Equilibrium Flow Model of a University Campus

This paper develops a simple deterministic model that relates student admissions and enrollments to the final demand for educated students. It includes the effects of drop-out rates and student-teacher ratios upon student enrollments and faculty staffing levels. Certain technological requirements are assumed known and given. These, as well as the laws of flow conservation and the relations between equilibrium enrollment levels and average flow rates, are used to predict the effects of specific administrative policies and institutional controls at the campus level.

Optimal Smoothing Rules for University Financial Planning

The determination of each years endowment payout, total spending, and transfers to or from reserves is set up as an optimal smoothing rule problem. Stochastic laws of motion are formulated for total spending, operating income, changes in the balances for endowment and operating reserves, and the acquisition of new gifts to endowment. Parameters of the smoothing rules are obtained by making subjective tradeoffs among objectives such as the means and meansquare deviations of budget quantities and the probabilities that these quantities will exceed certain control limits. The model currently is being used to determine the endowment payout rate for Stanford University.

Multiattribute Preference Functions of University Administrators

Results of a pilot study in the estimation of a university preference function are reported. Data were gathered from a sample of administrators at Stanford University and individual preference functions were derived for evaluating alternatives expressed in terms of a small set of primary planning variables. Each of these functions was tested for internal consistency and the ability to predict the individual’s response to new alternatives.