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We use panel data models to examine variations and changes in faculty employment at four-year colleges and universities in the United States. The share of part-time faculty among total faculty has continued to grow during the last two decades, while the share of full-time lecturers and instructors has been relatively stable. Meanwhile, the share of nontenure track faculty among full-time faculty has been growing, especially among the professorial ranks. Dynamic panel data models suggest that employment levels of different types of faculty respond to a variety of economic and institutional factors. Colleges and universities have increasingly employed faculty whose salaries and benefits are relatively inexpensive; the slowly deteriorating financial situations at most colleges and universities have led to an increasing reliance on a contingent academic workforce. A cross-sectional comparison of the share of full-time nontenure track faculty also reveals significant variations across institutions.

Higher education has experienced some significant changes over the past few years including a highly competitive landscape, use of new technology, managing COVID protocols and guiding students to resources that ensure their success. With prior research highlighting the changes in the workforce and poor working conditions of part-time faculty, this study aims to explore full-time perceptions of several employment-related variables to determine how these significant workplace changes have impacted them.

A mixed-methods approach is used. This includes a questionnaire being sent out via e-mail to faculty at a medium-sized, public, regional university located in the USA. This was sent through two separate listservs: full-time faculty listserv and part-time faculty listserv. The questionnaire included quantitative and qualitative questions. A one-way ANOVA was used to detect significant differences between the two groups of interest for the quantitative components. The qualitative portions of the questionnaire provided deeper insights into employee perceptions of their workplace.

This research uncovers some alarming trends for full-time faculty within higher education. Across several different employment variables, full-time faculty perceptions are significantly worse than part-time faculty. This includes work–family conflict, pay perceptions, compensation opportunities, online teaching experiences, overwhelming work activities, technology provided, travel funding provided, perceived satisfaction of a faculty advocate and perceived benefits of a faculty advocate. Qualitative and quantitative results support these findings and provide additional clarification as to why they have these negative workplace perceptions.

A convenience sample was used, where data was only gathered from one university. Future research could replicate finding with more universities varying in their make-up and location to determine if these results hold across the USA and internationally. Some measures did not use established scales in the literature, and some were single-item measures. Future research could replicate findings using established scales with multi-item measures to provide more confidence the results produced that are reliable and valid.

These results suggest alarming concerns for higher education institutions regarding their full-time faculty. Human resource managers and administrators at universities should respond to “the alarm” from this research and internal employee satisfaction surveys they have conducted with their employees. Changes should be made at higher education institutions to improve employee workplace perceptions in hopes of retaining valuable employees and improving worker morale to increase productivity. The recent workplace changes and challenges for full-time faculty are negatively impacting their workplace perceptions.

As a result of full-time faculty having significantly worse perceptions across all measured employment variables than their part-time colleagues, who already had poor perceptions, the authors may see more “good” employees leaving the industry for other more lucrative options. Others may become “dead wood” in the university and engage in “quite quitting” resulting in less productivity. With the tenure process protecting professors, this may result in universities being “stuck” with many unmotivated professors and hurt the quality of educational services provided. Some professors may even act out negatively toward the university. This could damage the quality of education provided at universities and perceptions of higher education by society.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study comparing full-time and part-time faculty workplace perceptions across several variables. After previous study has highlighted the poor work conditions and perceptions of part-time faculty, this study adds to the discussion showing that significant changes in the workplace have resulted in full-time faculty now perceiving their employment to be significantly worse than their part-time colleagues. This can have significant short-term and long-term ramifications for the industry that will make it more difficult for universities to attract talented individuals to choose a career in education and retaining their best workers based on current employment perceptions.

This study investigates the relationship among preference for full-time employment, primacy of part-time employment, and work-related outcomes in a nationally representative sample of part-time college instructors. Results based on multilevel cross-classified random effects models indicate that part-time faculty who prefer full-time positions report working on average more hours per week and express greater work-related dissatisfaction than those who choose reduced work hours. Individuals whose part-time jobs are their primary jobs have less job satisfaction but work longer hours than those who treat part-time work as secondary. Finally, those who prefer full-time employment report more negative job satisfaction when the primacy of their part-time jobs is high.

Adequacy of full-time faculty is a fundamental indicator used by US accreditors to ensure quality learning environments. This paper aims to explore institutional responses to one US regional accreditor to identify themes related to adequacy of faculty in support of institutional missions over a two-year period.

A qualitative design was used to examine eighteen institutional narratives. The research question was “What themes are identified by institutions to document adequacy of full-time faculty for compliance with accreditation?” The highest level of degree awarded was used to organize emergent themes from institutional narratives (e.g. associate, baccalaureate, master’s and doctoral level institutions).

The study identified five themes: definition of full-time faculty; variation in assessment measures used to demonstrate adequacy of full-time faculty; institutional characteristics and full-time faculty; responsibilities of full-time faculty; and relationship between full-time faculty and student learning outcomes. The findings showed that the institutions used multiple assessment measurements to demonstrate compliance.

The research design was limited to one US regional accreditation agency; therefore, the acceptable evidence related to adequacy of full-time faculty may differ among accrediting bodies, which would impact the institutional narrative and methods for demonstrating compliance. Second, some of the institutional groupings included only one or two narratives.

The finding of this study could have important implications for the research and practice of evaluating faculty in accreditation reviews.

There have been limited studies on accreditation narratives focused on the adequacy of full-time faculty. This study offers findings that may be of benefit to non-US and US higher education institutions in planning for faculty staffing patterns to support fulfillment of the institutional mission.

This study investigates how the increased use of part‐time and nontenure‐track instructors may result in grade inflation.

This research uses ten years of registrar data at a Midwest State (USA) institution to perform a multiple regression grade analysis.

Evidence is found that part‐time and nontenure‐track instructors give higher grades even after accounting for many alternative explanations for grade differences.

The source for the data used for the study is one public institution. Additional studies from a wider range of institution types would be necessary before more definite conclusions can be drawn.

This paper extends the work performed by a number of other authors by analyzing a significantly longer‐time period and by using data not specific to a particular discipline. In addition, this study expands upon past studies by including full‐time nontenure‐track faculty whose numbers are increasing rapidly in higher education. A multiple regression analysis is also used that provides for more robust results and controls for many alternative explanations of grade differences.

The underrepresentation of African-American faculty in the US professoriate has persisted for some time. Relatedly, adjunct faculty remain a fast-growing sector of the professoriate. Adjunct faculty include “experts” and “specialists” who teach postsecondary courses with a narrow focus and with content tailored to their full-time employment. Using a qualitative narrative approach, I delineate ways I construct meaning for myself as a part-timer. I develop a cultural interpretation of adjunct teaching that provides alternative view of professional socialization to counter the ongoing challenge of increasing the number of Black faculty in higher education. In doing so, three themes from the data (ideal worker as adjunct, historical role models, and clinical value of course content) suggest the identity of part-time faculty is situated in personal, professional, and cultural experiences.

The number of Black men earning doctorate degrees and teaching in the academy is dwindling. This chapter focuses on the relevance and existence of Black males in doctoral programs and in the professoriate as full-time tenured, tenure-tracked, assistant, associate, and full professors, and presents analogous data on the demography of these two groups. The author, a Black male professor at a majority White research institution, uses introspection as a foundational theme to illuminate this national data. Such self-analysis will serve to move readers beyond the statistics to the challenges that belie the meager numbers of Black male doctoral students and professors.

We survey full-time accounting faculty holding terminal degrees about professional certifications. In addition to asking faculty about professional certifications they hold, we gather data about faculty’s experiences as well as their perceptions about the pursuit of professional certifications. We find significant results for the following items: faculty at non-doctoral schools are more likely to hold professional certifications than their doctoral counterparts; newer faculty are less likely to hold a professional certification, indicating a decreasing trend of accounting faculty who are professionally certified, and faculty teaching audit and taxation are more likely to hold a professional certification, denoting a higher practice credential requirement for faculty teaching in those areas. Our work also reveals faculty’s perceptions about the benefits of obtaining a certification to both teaching and research. By understanding the motivations and obstacles perceived by accounting faculty in their pursuit of professional certifications, universities can design reward systems that best suit their institutional mission while accommodating faculty pursuit of professional certifications in order to bridge the gap between accounting education and accounting practice.

Community colleges are an under-recognized but vital component of higher education. Public two-year colleges provide a foundation for baccalaureate degree attainment, educate a skilled math and science workforce, and support local economic development. Our research, which examines women STEM faculty at community colleges, highlights the role of gender in reproducing advantages and disadvantages within the academy.

Data were collected by face-to-face interviews with 27 women faculty at nine community colleges in Ohio. We utilized semi-structured interviewing techniques to examine key dimensions such as decision-making leading to employment in two-year institutions, perceived advantages and disadvantages of such work, job satisfaction, and challenges to balancing career and family.

Results indicate considerable satisfaction among women faculty members, but contradict a popular stereotype that work at community colleges is easier for women with families. Despite relative parity in terms of occupational composition, pay, and tenure, community colleges are gendered in that they lack formal programs, institutionalized support, and leadership opportunities to support women.

Adjunct faculty play an important role in higher education but are underrepresented in our sample. Future research is needed to examine the unique situation of part-time faculty.

Community colleges are uniquely poised to contribute to improving gender equality for women in STEM. Understanding community colleges and the academic careers of women in STEM employed by these institutions is a vital step in our nation’s efforts to develop systemic approaches to increase representation and advancement of women in STEM careers.

This chapter explores connections of the assessment of learning at the programmatic level and the humanitarian mission of higher education. To highlight typical aspects of assessment routines, we examine the experiences and processes of a small department in the college in the United States focusing on two themes: concerns about assessment culture and concerns about assessment data. Assessment of student learning falls under the umbrella of regular faculty work. However, these activities become contradictory if we reflect on assessment as cultural labor discussed through layers of alienation and distribution of labor among part-time, full-time faculty and students. Further, discussing data practices, we question the philosophy of datafication, or tendency to measure any aspect of learning with presumed objectivity, as well other data routines. To address the limitations of assessment from the humanistic point of view we call to develop a dialogue in order to provide opportunities for justice to students, faculty, and data. Such opportunities can emerge from honest discussions of faculty labor in the assessment engagement and reframing assessment as a research process.