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As can be seen comparing this chart with that for the number of faculty positions in Sociology, our period of greatest growth in faculty slots - as a department - was when we had a senior full professor, an associate professor, a new full professor and the director of the DRL - all in Demography at the same time (1975-80, roughly). That was a full-time staff person plus three out of seven-to-nine faculty depending when you count. I believe this gave us credibility with the Administration (or at least with the Deans and Presidents we were blessed with then).
Those administrators are gone now. The two older faculty have now retired. The one recently hired to replace both of them left after three years here. No one has been hired to replace her, nor is Demography among either of our two current job search descriptions (the designated areas are family and criminal justice).
Today's administators (and my colleagues) are more concerned with demographics than Demography. Like urban planners whose response to too much traffic is to add more freeways, they add faculty in popular areas, then complain about having too many majors and majors with too little academic motivation/ability. You'd think sociologists could figure all this out.