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[derosa]

My institution is in an area that has several other institutions of higher ed within close proximity.  Across the institution, we get a lot of applications for positions from candidates who have attended local institutions.  We frequently hire these folks.  In some situations, several faculty in the same department have received their doctoral training at the same institution.

I am interested in hearing your thoughts on this.  We try to look further afield when hiring, but often, because of a low number of applicants, we wind up making the local hire.  These certainly are qualified people, but also tend to be from the same few institutions.  The concern, I guess,  is shooting for a diversity of perspective.

[conjugate]

Well, at the risk of seeming facetious, I will suggest a solution:  Hire me!  I'm on the market this year, and am probably not from your area.

Okay, so that was facetious.  Here's a more serious response.  When you hire a "local" you can be somewhat sure of what you are getting, and you get a potential hire whom you know will be able to adjust to the area without too much difficulty (since these candidates already live there).  I can see that these benefits would be great in face of the risks of a candidate who would speak dismissively of the area, and openly speak of looking to move elsewhere after a short time.

The risks, as you state above, are that you wind up with a "synoptic" department, and that the students you produce have not seen the breadth and diversity of opinion that comes of having faculty brought up in different traditions with different approaches to the subject matter.  But if you have only a small number of people from other institutions, you can provide this diversity (by ensuring that everybody takes a course offered by one of the non-locals, for instance) without concern at a large number of local faculty.  I wouldn't be too concerned about it.  But do put in a good word with your math department for me, okay?  :-)

[wxdude]

It depends on your department and institution. In my department, we have a doctoral program to support and as such are careful not to hire faculty from the same institution. We prefer to hire from top doctoral programs to ensure that we have faculty who bring a variety of disciplinary perspectives to our department.

[anthroid]

I actively work to bring folks from away from the region.  My department seems to be populated by a fair number of people who have taken their degrees from the R2 up the road (maybe all of their degrees...), and this is creating a serious issue of parochialism.  I do face the problem, though, and short of failing a fair number of searches, I'm at a loss for what to do about this.  I haven't seen this at the institutions where I have worked previously, just this one.

[sheinthespirit]

I work in a department with a similar issue.  Except, they aren't all locals. They just graduated from the same program.

Honestly, it feels like inbreeding. Name dropping, and remember when stories.  AND how did it there.  It is really annoying.

I believe there should be a policy (if only in spirit) against so many people from a concentrated area/school.

I know it becomes difficult when you are in an isolated area, but I would try tooth and nail to not have this happen again.