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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.

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.

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.

Increased emphasis on offering quality education underscores the need for developing a rigorous process for assessing academic programs in higher education. In this chapter, we develop a practical and rigorous framework for comprehensive assessment of academic programs. This framework generates in-depth communication between the academic departments and the university administration. It provides a useful tool for advancing the university mission, setting priorities, allocating resources, and identifying future areas of potential growth. This data-driven framework covers a wide range of qualitative and quantitative variables. To ensure a smooth and efficient implementation of the assessment process we present the critical stages in the development of a successful program assessment framework − from determining the assessment criteria, establishing the organizational climate, appointing the assessment committee, preparing program self-studies, to collecting and analyzing data. We present real examples from the author’s home institution to illustrate and support the reader’s understanding of the framework.

To understand the reasons that accounting academics leave the tenure-track academic pipeline.

Survey study was conducted of PhD graduates who left the tenure-track accounting pipeline over a 22-year period.

We located and surveyed accounting PhD graduates who have opted out of the tenure-track. These opt-outs included those who have left academia entirely and those who have moved into non-tenure-track positions. Survey results indicate that dissatisfaction with research expectations is the most significant factor for faculty now employed in non-tenure-track positions. Although there were no gender-related differences in the number of faculty who left the tenure-track but stayed in academia, there were some gender differences in the importance of family-related factors in motivating the move off of the tenure-track.

The study examines the importance of the “push” and “pull” factors associated with changing career paths in academia that have been identified in the literature. The study finds some differences in influential factors between accounting academia and other fields. Sample size is a potential limitation.

The study provides recommendations for PhD program directors and for hiring institutions to help reduce the number of opt-outs.

Retention of qualified faculty who are dedicated teachers improves students’ educational outcomes.

This is the first study to examine factors that drive accounting academics to opt-out of the tenure-track.

This chapter explores and addresses the current status of the professorship in higher education. The authors explore how the prestige of the professorship has dwindled and as a result has changed the overall trajectory of the professor as an active and ongoing integral part that is the essential essence of the academy. This chapter picks up from the research article initially published by Mutisya and Osler in 2014 as well as the work published by the same two authors in 2013. The 2013 article involved an in-depth analysis on the professorate from a diverse number of currently employed professors. The research ultimately addressed the need for a “Conceptual Framework for Faculty as Academic Leaders in the Academy.” This chapter extends the initial research into an active discourse on current problems facing the professorate and solutions that can be enacted to reclaim the lost prestige and authority that the position of professor once had in higher education.