In recent decades, the growing role of “nontraditional” (i.e., part-time or nontenure track) faculty in the operation of universities and colleges has been a topic of considerable comment and debate among observers of higher education. Determining how this phenomenon compares to the flexible conditions of employment that have developed in some other economic sectors will require more in-depth analysis of data from the NSOPF and other sources. In the meantime, this indicator provides data from the NSOPF on the decline in the proportion of full-time faculty employed at colleges and universities (and the corresponding increase in the proportion of part-time faculty) between the late 1980s and the early 2000s.

As Figure III-11a reveals, there was a net decline between 1988 and 2004 in the proportion of humanities faculty characterized as full-time by their institutions. As was the case in most other fields (the exception was business), the greatest decrease in the percentage of full-time faculty in the humanities occurred between the late 1980s and the early 1990s. Thereafter, a more modest decline ensued, followed by a slight increase, so that by 2004 full-time humanities faculty represented just over half (53%) of all humanities faculty. This proportion was considerably smaller than that found in engineering and the various scientific fields. In 2004, only education, business, and the fine arts had a smaller share of faculty teaching full-time than did the humanities.

Figure III-11a, Full Size Supporting Data

In addition to supplying these data regarding the decreasing presence of the full-time humanities faculty, the NSOPF sheds some light on the attitudes of part-time faculty toward their employment status. For some, part-time employment can be desirable, permitting them to keep a foot in the academic world while making contributions elsewhere. This, however, was more the case in 1999 than in 2004, when the percentage of part-time faculty who preferred part-time employment had declined in all fields—and by a significant 19% in the humanities (Figure III-11b). By 2004, only in the fine arts did a smaller proportion of part-time faculty indicate a preference for their current status.

Figure III-11b, Full Size Supporting Data

Note on the Definition of Faculty and on the Classification of Disciplines Faculty For the purposes of the Humanities Indicators, a faculty member is defined as an employee of a two-year or four-year college or a university who teaches credit-earning courses and who may also perform research activities. Faculty thus include not only individuals who have faculty status in their institutions but also those who are classified as instructional staff by their employers. Faculty exclude those individuals whose duties are purely research oriented (even though such individuals may be classified as faculty by their institutions). Classification of Academic Disciplines The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the collector of the data on which the first indicator in this section is based (III-9, Number of Humanities Faculty) sorts postsecondary faculty by academic discipline, using a scheme that includes six humanities-related categories. Five of these have been combined by the Humanities Indicators for the purposes of estimating humanities faculty employment. They include: English Language and Literature Foreign Languages and Literatures History Philosophy and Religion Area, Ethnic, and Cultural Studies The sixth BLS category, Arts, Drama, and Music, does not distinguish between faculty who teach the academic study of the arts (treated by the Humanities Indicators as a humanities activity) and those who teach studio and performing arts. Consequently, faculty teaching the history and criticism of the fine arts and film are not included in the estimate of the number of humanities faculty. The National Study of Postsecondary Faculty (NSOPF), the source of the data for the other indicators in this section, conceptualizes the humanities somewhat more narrowly than does the Humanities Indicators, including only those individuals teaching English, foreign languages, history, philosophy, and religion. Additionally, the NSOPF treats computer science as a natural science (although the Humanities Indicators considers this discipline to be part of the engineering field and classifies it as such for the purposes of the other indicators). Back to Content

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