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	Vol 3, Issue 4, Topic:   Postsecondary Education Institutional Policies and Practices: Results From the 1999 National Study of Postsecondary Faculty, Institution Survey By:  Andrea Berger, Rita Kirshstein, and Elizabeth Rowe

Postsecondary Education

This article was originally published as the Executive Summary of the Statistical Analysis Report of the same name. The sample survey data are from the NCES National Study of Postsecondary Faculty (NSOPF).  

• Faculty and Their Institutions
• Teaching Assignments and Performance
• Faculty Transitions
• The Tenure System
• Faculty Benefits

 
About 1.1 million faculty teach in our nation’s approximately 3,400 degree-granting postsecondary institutions.¹ The role of faculty in these institutions is critical to the success of postsecondary education in the United States. The National Study of Postsecondary Faculty (NSOPF), conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), includes both a survey of institutions that focuses on policies and practices affecting faculty and a survey of faculty themselves. This report presents findings from the “Institution Survey” of the 1999 NSOPF (NSOPF:99),² the third in the series. Institutions were asked about their policies and practices as of fall 1998.

The distribution of faculty across U.S. degree-granting postsecondary institutions reflects the diversity of postsecondary education in the United States (table A). For example, public research institutions accounted for 3 percent of the nation’s degree-granting postsecondary institutions, yet they employed 18 percent of the nation’s faculty in fall 1998. In contrast, private liberal arts colleges constituted 21 percent of all degree-granting institutions, but employed about 9 percent of all faculty.

A large proportion of all faculty, about two-fifths, worked part time (table B). Some institutions relied on part-time faculty to a greater degree than others. Almost two-thirds (65 percent) of the faculty at public 2-year institutions held part-time appointments. At the other end of the spectrum, about one-fifth (21 percent) of the faculty at public research institutions worked part time.

Institutions also provided information about faculty union activity. Twenty-five percent of all institutions reported that some of their faculty were represented by a union.

Full-time faculty were responsible for teaching most of the undergraduate credit hours.³ Based on percentages reported by individual institutions, full-time faculty covered an average of 71 percent of all undergraduate credit hours at their institution, part-time faculty covered an average of 27 percent of all undergraduate credit hours, and teaching assistants and other instructional staff each covered an average of about 1 percent of all undergraduate credit hours (figure A).⁴ Public research institutions assigned more undergraduate credit hours to teaching assistants than any other institution type (14 percent).

Table A.—Percentage distribution of degree-granting postsecondary education institutions, faculty, and enrolled students, by type and control of institution: Fall 1998

Table B.—Percentage distribution of faculty, by employment status and by type and control of institution: Fall 1998

Most institutions have policies for evaluating the quality of their faculty’s instruction. Measures based on student inputs or results were used by most institutions, with 86 percent using at least one student-based measure to evaluate full-time faculty; institutions most commonly employed student evaluations of instructional quality (85 percent). Most institutions also used administrative-level evaluations, with 95 percent using at least one administrative-level measure to evaluate full-time faculty; two of the most common administrative-level measures were department chair evaluations (83 percent) and dean evaluations (77 percent).

About two-fifths (44 percent) of institutions experienced average growth of 20 percent in the size of their faculty. Another two-fifths (44 percent) experienced no change in the number of full-time faculty from fall 1993 to fall 1998. The remaining 12 percent of institutions averaged a 9 percent decrease in the size of their faculty.

In fall 1998, 8 percent of all full-time faculty were new hires at their institution; a similar percentage of all full-time faculty left their positions between fall 1997 and fall 1998: 29 percent of those who left did so due to retirement and the remaining 71 percent left for a variety of other reasons. Some of these departures may have been related to actions taken by the institutions. Between 1993 and 1998, 40 percent of all institutions took at least one action to reduce the size of the full-time faculty. Some institutions (22 percent) accomplished this goal by replacing full-time faculty with part-time faculty.

Most institutions (66 percent) had tenure systems in place in fall 1998. Approximately 100 percent of public research, private not-for-profit research, and public doctoral insti-tutions had tenure systems. Tenure systems were less common at private comprehensive (58 percent), private liberal arts (66 percent), and public 2-year institutions (61 percent).

Figure A.—Percentage distribution of undergraduate instructional credit hours assigned to various levels of staff: Fall 1998

As of fall 1998, 48 percent of all full-time faculty had tenure at their respective institutions. Of the remaining faculty, 19 percent were on tenure track⁶ and 20 percent were not on tenure track (figure B). Approximately 12 percent of all full-time faculty worked at institutions without tenure systems. Of the newly hired faculty, 39 percent were hired into tenure-track positions and 45 percent were hired into non-tenure-track positions.

In the 1997-98 academic year, 16 percent of the nation’s nontenured, tenure-track faculty came up for tenure review. Overall, 81 percent of those reviewed received tenure. Public research institutions granted tenure to 90 percent of those reviewed. At the other end of the spectrum, private comprehensive institutions granted tenure to 65 percent of those reviewed. Most institutions (89 percent) limited the number of years that a faculty member may spend on tenure track. The most common limits were 6 years (34 percent) and 7 years (28 percent).

Between 1993 and 1998, 63 percent of all institutions took at least one action related to tenure. The most common action was to offer early or phased retirement to tenured faculty members (48 percent).

As part of compensation packages, institutions supported a variety of benefits for their faculty in fall 1998. Nearly all institutions (98 percent) contributed in some degree to benefits for full-time faculty and about one-half (53 percent) contributed for part-time faculty. Among those institutions that contributed, the value of benefits added an average of 26 percent to the salaries of full-time faculty and an average of 18 percent to the salaries of part-time faculty.⁷

Almost all institutions (99 percent) offered retirement plans to full-time faculty. Institutions primarily offered TIAA/CREF (72 percent).⁸ Other 403(b) plans were also fairly common options, offered at 54 percent of all institutions.

Almost all institutions provided insurance benefits for their full-time faculty. Most institutions provided disability insurance (90 percent) and life insurance (94 percent), and many institutions provided these two benefits with a full subsidy (49 and 57 percent, respectively). Medical insurance or care (99 percent) and dental insurance or care (89 percent) were frequently part of institutions’ benefits packages. However, these were usually not fully subsidized.

Institutions commonly provided some benefits to full-time faculty’s family members. These included benefits directly for other family members (like tuition remission for a spouse or child; 67 percent for each) and benefits related to parenting (like paid maternity or paternity leave; 58 and 39 percent, respectively). Child care was sometimes provided by institutions (23 percent), although usually unsubsidized.

Other common additions to overall benefits packages for full-time faculty included paid sabbatical leave (76 percent), transportation or parking (56 percent), wellness or health programs (57 percent), and employee assistance programs (54 percent).

Many institutions provided the benefits listed above to part-time faculty. However, in almost every case, the benefit was less commonly offered to part-time faculty than to full-time faculty. In addition, many institutions required that part-time faculty meet certain eligibility requirements before receiving benefits. Of those institutions that provided retirement plans to part-time faculty, 69 percent had eligibility requirements for retirement plans. Across all institutions with part-time faculty, 45 percent had eligibility requirements for other benefits provided to part-time faculty.

Figure B.—Percentage distribution of full-time faculty, by tenure status: Fall 1998