ABOUT US

The nature of the American academic workforce has fundamentally shifted over the past several decades. Whereas full-time tenured and tenure-track faculty were once the norm, more than two-thirds of the professoriate in non-profit postsecondary education is now comprised of non-tenure-track faculty, many who encounter working conditions that constrain their capacity to provide the highest quality instruction and educational experience for their students. New hires across all institutional types are now largely contingent and this number will continue to grow unless trends change.
The Delphi Project was initiated to support a better understanding of factors that led to a majority of faculty being hired off the tenure track, the impact of these circumstances on teaching and learning; and potential strategies for addressing issues of rising contingency together.  It is a project of the Pullias Center for Higher Education at the University of Southern California in partnership with the Association of American College and Universities (AAC&U) and includes more than 30 representatives from across higher education. The project has received generous funding from The Spencer Foundation, The Teagle Foundation, and The Carnegie Corporation of New York.

IN THE NEWS
09.24.17 ‘Shared Leadership in Higher Education’ is featured in The Chronicle of Higher Education. Check out the article. ​

Example Practices

The Path to Change: How Campus Communities Worked to Change Non-Tenure-Track Policies and Practices

Adrianna Kezar, Daniel Maxey, and Hannah Yang
A collection of documents describing how several campuses have already initiated a dialogue about non-tenure-track faculty practices and how different groups on each campus worked together to implement changes.  These examples can offer some ideas about how to pursue changes on your own campus.

Click on the links below to access each case:
California State University, Pomona
Madison Area Technical College
Mountain College*
San Francisco State University
University of Southern California
University System of Maryland
Villanova University
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

*Mountain College is a pseudonym, but represents an actual institution.

Resources

Adapting By design Toolkit​

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This toolkit can help institutional leaders facilitate an intentional process to collectively examine and redesign the faculty models locally at their own institutions. It draws upon recommendations made in Adapting by Design and our firm belief that the type of change we have advocated for over several years can be achieved when campus leaders from the administration and faculty working with other stakeholders and engage in meaningful dialogue.

rethinking faculty models/roles: An emerging consensus about future directions for the professoriate
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Well-documented, dramatic changes in the academic workforce at American colleges and universities have occurred over the past several decades. Today, the majority of faculty members who provide instruction are nontenure-track, and it is clear that a return to the days of a largely tenure-track faculty model is highly unlikely, unless tenure were to change.​​

ENVISIONING THE FACULTY FOR THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY: MOVING TO A MISSION-ORIENTED AND LEARNER-CENTERED MODEL
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The institution of tenure—once a cornerstone of American colleges and universities—is rapidly eroding. Today, the majority of faculty positions are part-time or limited-term appointments, a radical change that has resulted more from circumstance than from thoughtful planning.
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Meet Our Team

Adrianna kezar

​Ph.D

Director and P.I.

Elizabeth  holcombe

M.A.

Researcher

Hannah yang

M.ED.

Project Associate​

Daniel SCOTT

Ph.D

RESEARCHER

Daniel maxey

Ph.D

Project ConsultanT​

Dissemination

Upcoming Events

AAC&U 2018 Annual meeting: Can Higher Education Recapture the Elusive American Dream?

Recent eVents

The National Center’s 44th Annual National Conference At the CUNY Graduate Center in New York City

ACE2017 99th Annual Meeting

GENERAL FAqs

  • What do people mean when they use terms like “non-tenure-track,” “adjunct,” or “contingent” faculty? Are there differences?

    Yes, there are differences in these terms. Not everyone agrees on how these terms are applied, but we offer an explanation of common terms below.

    The terms non-tenure-track faculty and contingent commonly denote both full- and part-time academic staff who are not on the tenure track; they are ineligible to be considered for tenure. It is important to note that this is not a homogeneous group. Individuals may have very different reasons for taking non-tenure-track jobs and the nature of work and working conditions can vary substantially, even on campus.

    Full-time non-tenure-track faculty may be referred to as lecturers, instructors, or clinical faculty. Titles and formal classifications may vary by campus and might even differ among the numerous academic units at an institution. They typically work at one institution since they hold full-time appointments.

    Part-time faculty are also commonly referred to as adjunct faculty or simply as adjuncts. Depending upon their individual circumstances, some part-time faculty might work only work at one institution. However, they are more likely to have positions at multiple institutions and may aspire to full-time or tenure-track positions.

    Although these individuals are not considered for tenure and may not be required or permitted to participate in the full range of teaching, research, and service tasks as tenure-track faculty, they are still faculty. The work they do is tremendously important in the teaching and research missions of the institution. On some campuses, non-tenure-track faculty may teach a large share of the students enrolled in courses, particularly freshmen and sophomores or online students. They are often very committed to their field of study and to ensuring the success of the students they teach.

  • How many faculty are currently employed off the tenure-track?

    Recent data from the National Center for Education Statistics’ Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System, collected in Fall 2011, shows that part-time faculty now represent 51.2% of instructional faculty among non-profit institutions; tenured and tenure-track positions are 29.9% and full-time non-tenure-track are 19.1%. The percentage of part-time faculty increased 3.5% and there was a 0.3% increase in the full-time non-tenure-track faculty since the previous IPEDS data collection in 2009.

    In contrast to the recent 2011 data, in 1969 tenured and tenure-track positions made up approximately 78.3% of the faculty and non-tenure-track positions comprised about 21.7% (Schuster & Finkelstein, 2006). The shift toward a mostly contingent academic workforce in higher education is not a recent phenomenon, but part of a long-term trend. Over time as these changes have occurred, though, institutions have often not considered the implications for the sustainability of the academic workforce or student learning.

    >>Click here to download Non-Tenure-Track Faculty By The Numbers

    The Modern Language Association has created a searchable tool that displays faculty composition data for all non-profit institutions in the United States. We encourage you to visit this site to determine the composition of faculty at your institution.

    >>Click here to access the Modern Language Association’s Academic Workforce Data Center

  • How much are non-tenure-track faculty typically paid?

    Though part-time and full-time non-tenure-track faculty are both paid less than tenured and tenure-track faculty, part-time faculty are customarily paid significantly less than even full-time non-tenure-track faculty for the same work.

    Full-time non-tenure-track faculty typically make 26% less than tenured faculty, but part-time faculty earn approximately 60% less than comparable full-time, tenure-track faculty when their salaries are expressed on an hourly basis (Curtis, 2005; Toutkoushian & Bellas, 2003).

    The low end of per-course compensation for full- and part-time non-tenure-track faculty is comparable ($3,171 for part-time and $3,523 for full-time); the disparity is on the high end (Hollenshead et al., 2007).

    A more recent study conducted by the Coalition on the Academic Workforce (CAW, 2012) found the median per-course compensation for part-time faculty, $2,700, to be far lower than what tenure-track faculty are paid when standardized to reflect compensation for instruction in a three-credit course. This figure was confirmed by another recent salary survey conducted by the American Association of University Professors.

    Although the CAW study did find there is a wage premium for part-time faculty who hold doctoral or other terminal degrees, their rate of pay still falls far below that of full-time non-tenure-track and tenure-track faculty. Length of service to an institution, another factor that typically contributes to increases in compensation, was similarly found to not result in higher levels of compensation for part-time faculty or pay rates comparable to other faculty members.

    The workloads of non-tenure-track faculty are usually defined by their teaching, but consideration is not always given to the time faculty must spend preparing for classes, holding office hours, giving feedback on assignments, and communicating with students (Kezar & Sam, 2010).

  • How did this change come about and how might things continue to develop?

    Drivers of changes in the traditional faculty model have gained momentum in the last few decades, such that now 70% of faculty in U.S. institutions are employed through part-time or full-time non-tenure track positions, and over 30% are tenured or in tenure-track positions.

    The primary forces driving change in the traditional faculty workforce model are massification of higher education, enrollment fluctuations, dwindling resources, corporatization, technological advances, and competition from the for-profit sector.

    While new faculty workforce models have emerged in response to these forces, no model has been intentionally designed and deployed with long-term institutional goals in mind, with perhaps the exception of the medical school model.

    >>Click here to download The New Ecology of Higher Education: The Changing Faculty
    >>Click here to download the Changing Faculty Workforce Models white paper

  • What are the differences in faculty composition among various types of institutions and disciplinary areas?

    There is quite a bit of variation in faculty composition among different types of institutions and disciplinary areas. Historically, community colleges have employed the largest percentages of non-tenure-track faculty, particularly part-time faculty. Recent data from the National Center for Education Statistics’ Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System, collected in Fall 2011, suggests that part-time faculty members make up 80% or more of the faculty at 11% of community colleges nationwide.

    There are data concerning the percentages of non-tenure-track faculty in specific disciplinary areas, although national data have not been collected in more than a decade. Such data could be collected as part of existing data collection efforts conducted by the Department of Education such as through the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System.

    • Education: 55.5%
    • Social Sciences: 37.4%
    • Humanities: 46.2%
    • Agriculture and Home Economics: 30.2%
    • Engineering: 19.6%

    Overall, faculty in education, fine arts, and business are most likely to work part-time with more than half the faculty assigned to part-time positions. These data are over 10 years old and the percentages of part-time faculty in each of these fields has likely increased in following trends across higher education. The Delphi Project has prepared a summary of faculty composition and the variation among types of institutions and disciplines, which is linked below.

    >>Click here to download Non-Tenure-Track Faculty By The Numbers

  • These national trends do not reflect the reality at every institution, though, right?

    That’s right. The national figures represent aggregate data for instructional faculty among all of the non-profit, degree-granting institutions in the United States.

    A single institution or department may even look different than these data with regard to faculty composition. Still, the national data do show us that reliance on non-tenure-track faculty is increasing in every area of higher education. Few, if any, institutions or disciplinary areas are immune to this trend.

    Too often, campus leaders say that their faculty does not reflect the trends, but are not really aware of the actual numbers or conditions faced by non-tenure-track faculty on their campus. It is very important that leaders on every campus collect data to better understand how many faculty members are employed among the various categories of faculty and the obstacles and challenges part-time faculty, in particular, face in the workplace. We have created discussion guides to help answer these and related questions that can be used to facilitate an examination of non-tenure-track faculty issues at the campus level, department level, and among leaders of centers for teaching and learning and institutional research offices.

    >>Click here to access Delphi Project discussion guides

  • What about graduate students? Are they included in your figures?

    No, the Delphi Project does not include data for graduate students in its figures on the composition of instructional faculty because the data are less clear about the role of these individuals in providing instruction, for example whether a graduate student is teaching a course on their own, serving as a teaching assistant, or leading a lab section that is part of a larger course taught by a faculty member. By excluding graduate students from our figures about rising contingency, we do not mean to imply that this is not an important area of concern. We do need to better understand the role of graduate students who are providing instruction, as well as how they are being socialized and prepared to assume roles as future faculty members.

CONTACT US

email
pullias@usc.edu

phone

address
213.740.7218
3470 Trousdale Parkway, WPH 701
Los Angeles, CA 90089-4037