Part III. The Humanities Workforce Section D. Postsecondary Humanities Faculty

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Indicator III-9 Number of Humanities Faculty

Indicator III-10 Institutional Distribution of Humanities Faculty

Indicator III-11 Traditional versus Nontraditional Humanities Faculty

Indicator III-12 Ethnic Composition of Humanities Faculty

Indicator III-13 Distribution of Humanities Faculty by Gender

Indicator III-14 Faculty Earnings

Indicator III-15 Job Satisfaction

The college and university faculty who preserve, impart, and advance humanistic knowledge are the focus of this section, which looks at the size, composition, and employment status of the humanities faculty population in the United States over the last few decades. Available data help illuminate university-wide trends and challenges, including growing numbers of adjunct, part-time, and nontenure-track faculty and the difficulty of bringing women and minorities into the highest tiers of the academic world.

The data supporting the indicators in this section are taken largely from the National Study of Postsecondary Faculty (NSOPF), which was sponsored in 1988, 1993, 1999, and 2004 by the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES). The only existing survey of a nationally representative sample of postsecondary faculty, the NSOPF permits analysis of the disciplinary, gender, ethnic, and institutional distribution of these personnel. In order to generate counts of faculty in various disciplines, this section also draws on data produced by the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ (BLS) Occupational Employment Statistics Program (OES). Due to differences in the way in which the two data collection programs classify academic disciplines, the BLS and NSOPF data are not strictly comparable (see the Note on the Definition of Faculty and on the Classification of Disciplines), but together they provide as accurate a picture as is available of the size and demographics of postsecondary humanities faculty in the contemporary United States.

In addition, data from the NSOPF are used here to provide two measures of the professional status of humanities faculty. The first measure, their average salary by rank, gives an indication of how advanced degrees in the humanities perform as financial investments. The second measure describes faculty members’ levels of satisfaction with their jobs overall and with specific facets of their academic employment.

Indicator III-9	Number of Humanities Faculty
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Over the last several years, while the number of doctoral degree completions in the humanities tended to decline, the number of full- and part-time faculty teaching the humanities increased. As Figure III-9a indicates, growth was modest between 1999 and 2001 but then accelerated over the next four years. By 2006, the number of humanities faculty had increased 24% from its 1999 level. At the same time, however, the faculties of several other fields grew even more quickly, with the health sciences in particular seeing a 41% increase. Consequently, although the number of humanities faculty grew, the proportion of all faculty who taught humanities held at approximately 14% throughout the period (Figure III-9b).

Figure III-9a, Full Size Supporting Data

Figure III-9b, Full Size Supporting Data

Figure III-9c charts the number of faculty in selected humanities disciplines at the postsecondary level. In any given year between 1999 and 2006, English language and literature had the greatest number of faculty, and more than twice that of foreign languages and literatures, which consistently had the next highest number. For most fields, the beginning of the period, 1999–2001, was one of stability in the number of faculty. Thereafter, while faculty numbers in English, foreign languages and literatures, and history increased fairly steadily through 2006, growth in philosophy and religion and in area, ethnic, and cultural studies ceased in 2005, and by the following year the number of faculty teaching in these disciplines had declined.

Figure III-9c, Full Size Supporting Data

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Indicator III-10	Institutional Distribution of Humanities Faculty
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The data presented here, which are drawn from the NSOPF, describe both the distribution of humanities faculty among types of postsecondary institutions and the proportion of humanities faculty relative to those of other fields at each of those types of institutions. Data from the NSOPF are available as far back as 1988, but, because the institutional distribution of humanities faculty changed little between then and 2004, only data for the latter year (the most recent available) are provided here. The NCES, sponsor of the NSOPF, uses the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education to categorize postsecondary educational institutions. (See 2000 Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Learning¹ for definitions of institutional types referred to below.)

As Figure III-10a demonstrates, humanities faculty were most prevalent on the campuses of baccalaureate colleges, constituting 20% of all faculty. The figure also shows that humanities faculty were a substantial presence at associate’s colleges. Humanities faculty represented over 16% of all faculty working in these institutions, which were second only to baccalaureate colleges with respect to the share of faculty positions claimed by the humanities.

Figure III-10a, Full Size Supporting Data

The importance of associate’s colleges to the employment of humanities faculty is further illustrated in Figure III-10b. Depicting the distribution of the humanities faculty population across institutional types, this figure shows that 34% of all humanities faculty taught in associate’s colleges—more than in any other type of institution. While humanities faculty may have been most strongly represented on the campuses of baccalaureate colleges, these institutions employed a relatively small percentage (11%) of all humanities faculty.

Figure III-10b, Full Size Supporting Data

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Note

Indicator III-11	Traditional versus Nontraditional Humanities Faculty
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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

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Indicator III-12	Ethnic Composition of Humanities Faculty
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In the United States, most ethnic minorities have traditionally been underrepresented among humanities faculty, as they have among faculty in every other academic field (individuals of Asian descent are the exception). In 1988, when reliable nationally representative data describing the ethnic composition of humanities faculty became available through the NSOPF, less than 10% of all humanities faculty were nonwhite or Hispanic (Figure III-12a). Over the next decade-and-a-half this proportion grew, and by 2004 it amounted to 16%. Growth was greatest for Asians and African Americans, with both groups experiencing an increase of approximately 3 percentage points over the period, bringing these groups’ representation in 2004 to 4.9% and 5.1% respectively. The proportion of Hispanic faculty also grew, but only through 1999; thereafter it dropped somewhat, so that in 2004 Hispanic representation was 5.1%, less than 1 percentage point higher than it had been in 1988.

Figure III-12a, Full Size Supporting Data

Figure III-12b compares the humanities with other fields in terms of the representation of minority faculty. In 2004, the percentage of minority faculty in the humanities was lower than it was in most other fields and in the postsecondary faculty population as a whole. The highest minority representation was found in the natural sciences (close to 20%) and engineering (about 24%) due largely to the substantial numbers of faculty of Asian descent working in these fields. The other sciences—health and social—also outperformed the humanities with respect to the percentage of minority faculty, with approximately 18% of the faculty in each of these fields self-identifying as African American, Asian, American Indian/Alaska Native, or Hispanic. The only field with a substantially smaller share of minority faculty than the humanities was fine arts.

Figure III-12b, Full Size Supporting Data

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Indicator III-13	Distribution of Humanities Faculty by Gender
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While the humanities have lagged behind nearly all other fields in terms of the ethnic diversity of their faculty (see Indicator III-12, Ethnic Composition of Humanities Faculty), they have incorporated more women into the postsecondary faculty than most other fields. If faculty of all ranks are considered, just under 50% of humanities faculty were women in 2004, up from 37% in 1988 (Figure III-13a). By 2004, only two fields, education and health sciences, had greater proportions of female faculty.

Figure III-13a, Full Size Supporting Data

Women, however, remained a minority among the highest-ranking humanities faculty. Women still represented less than 40% of tenured faculty in 2004 (Figure III-13b). In addition, between 1988 and 1993 the percentage of nontenure track faculty who were women rose 8 percentage points to 59%. While this proportion subsequently dropped somewhat, women remained overrepresented among nontenure track faculty. Moreover, although the percentage of faculty eligible for tenure who were women rose between 1988 and 1993, it then dropped steadily throughout the remainder of the 1990s and into the early 2000s.

Figure III-13b, Full Size Supporting Data

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Indicator III-14	Faculty Earnings
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The NSOPF supplies a variety of earnings data for college and university faculty. However, such data are difficult to use for the purposes of comparison across academic fields because of differences in the pay structure that obtain for faculty in the health sciences and, at some institutions, the biological sciences, on the one hand, and for faculty in all other fields, on the other. While Humanities Indicators Project staff are in the process of devising a means of adjusting the data to compensate for these differences, this indicator provides data on the sums faculty reported having been paid by their institutions over the course of the 2003 calendar year.

As Figure III-14a illustrates, full-time humanities faculty, with median total earnings from employment of $61,852 in 2003 (2007 dollars), had the lowest income relative to faculty in other fields. This low figure is a result not only of the relatively small salaries humanities faculty tend to be paid by their institutions but also of their limited ability, compared to their counterparts in certain other fields, to earn additional income from other sources. In fact, although median reported earnings from employment outside academic institutions were by no means high in any field, this additional income was not only highest in the fine arts—the field with the lowest institutional income—but also sufficient to make total 2003 earnings for fine arts faculty higher than that of faculty in the humanities.

Figure III-14a, Full Size Supporting Data

Figure III-14b focuses specifically on institutional salaries for three ranks of faculty: full professor, associate professor, and assistant professor. In 2004, the median annual salary of full professors in the humanities was $78,900 placing them, along with education faculty, second from the bottom of the field rankings. Although humanities faculty salaries were somewhat higher than those in the fine arts, not only were these salaries more than $37,000 lower than those of full professors in the health sciences, who were the top earners among postsecondary professors, but also the earnings of full professors in the humanities were somewhat less than those of associate professors in engineering, health sciences, and business. Assistant and associate professors in the humanities fared similarly to full professors, receiving lower salaries, on average, than their counterparts in every other field except, once again, the fine arts.

Figure III-14b, Full Size Supporting Data

Once they have been adjusted for inflation, the data reveal that while most humanities faculty salaries dipped slightly in the early 1990s, salaries at all faculty ranks increased during the following decade (Figure III-14c). The net increase between 1987 and 2003 was somewhat greater for assistant and associate professors, whose median salaries rose approximately 5%, than for full professors, whose salaries rose only 3% over the same period.

Figure III-14c, Full Size Supporting Data

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Indicator III-15	Job Satisfaction
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The level of job satisfaction of humanities faculty serves as another valuable indicator of the state of the profession. In 2004, just over 45% of all humanities faculty described themselves as being “very satisfied” with their jobs (Figure III-15a), up 10 percentage points from 1988 when the NCES first posed the question as part of the NSOPF. Especially between 1999 and 2004, this trend toward greater satisfaction occurred across all academic fields, and in 2004 faculty in most fields reported satisfaction levels similar to those in the humanities. The only exceptions were the business and education faculties, with “very satisfied” rates of 52% and 56% respectively.

Figure III-15a, Full Size Supporting Data

Figure III-15b presents data on humanities faculty satisfaction with particular aspects of their employment, including their workloads and opportunities for advancement, as well as the benefits and salaries they receive. From 1988 to 2004, workload was the aspect of their employment with which humanities faculty were most satisfied, with the percentage of those reporting being “very satisfied” reaching 40% in 2004. The aspect of their jobs with which humanities faculty were least satisfied was pay, with only 21% of faculty describing themselves as being “very satisfied” with their incomes in 2004 (see also Indicator III-14, Faculty Earnings). To be sure, this is an improvement over 1993, when humanities faculty satisfaction with salaries dipped to 13%, the lowest level ever recorded by the NSOPF, but pay did remain a concern for the majority of humanities faculty throughout the period.

Figure III-15b, Full Size Supporting Data

Satisfaction with benefits, which had decreased over the course of the 1990s, rebounded in 2004, rising 7 percentage points to 27%. The percentage of those reporting that they were very satisfied with the opportunity for advancement was similar, although the most recent data available on this element of job satisfaction are from 1999 because the question was not asked as part of the 2004 NSOPF.

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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