The State Board of Regents says 138 professors resigned from the three state universities last year, but not as many as the record in 1987.Regents staff member Charles Kniker says most of the resignations came from assistant professors who left to advance their careers. Kniker says the universities are feeling the same competition for good faculty that’s seen in the private industry for workers.He says the Board of Regents isn’t ready to characterize the high number of resignations as a crisis,as the national average for resignations is four-point-five percent, and Iowa is below that. Kniker says they’ve made some progress in replacing the professors who’ve resigned, but says the search process can take months, and in some cases over a year to complete.