• Introduction
• Highlights
• Implications for the Future Faculty and Their Work
• References

Starting in the mid-1950s, many thousands of faculty members, often without doctoral degrees, were hired to staff the rapid expansion of higher education (Cartter 1976). By the late 1960s, however, a new cohort of faculty, more research oriented than their predecessors, began to replace them. It is these "teacher-scholars" who have largely reshaped our current system in the image of their own collective career aspirations and values (Jencks and Riesman 1968). Now a new academic generation is beginning to emerge as their successors, a product of different pressures and priorities. In some respects, they can expect to be less influential in the face of powerfully determinative demographic, economic, and technological forces that are transforming higher education. And yet, despite the environmental constraints, this cohort of recent hires, in view of its large size, is certain to play an influential, long-term role in how our national higher education system evolves. Accordingly, if we understand who these new faculty members are and what values they bring to their classrooms and laboratories, we will have provided an important lens through which to view higher education's future path.

The 1993 National Study of Postsecondary Faculty (NSOPF:1993) permits the delineation of this new academic generation-which is defined as the cohort of full-time faculty members in the first 7 years of their academic careers¹-and allows us to examine how this subgroup of faculty compares to a more senior cohort of full-time faculty on a wide variety of demographic and career variables. Faculty described in this report represent a subgroup of faculty and instructional staff included in NSOPF:1993, namely, those full-time faculty whose principal activity during the fall of 1992 was teaching, research, or administration (at the level of program director, department chairperson, or dean). The remainder of this article highlights key findings from the report.

• About 172,000 full-time faculty were in the first 7 years of an academic career, constituting one-third of the entire full-time faculty (table A).

• The new cohort disproportionately represented fields outside the liberal arts: 51 percent of the new cohort but only 45 percent of the senior cohort had their programmatic home outside the humanities, the social and natural sciences, and the fine arts.

Table A.—Percentage distribution of full-time faculty, by faculty seniority and type and control of institution: Fall 1992

• Females constituted 41 percent of the new faculty, 28 percent of the senior cohort, and 33 percent of the full-time faculty overall.

• Racial/ethnic minorities constituted one-sixth (17 percent) of the new cohort, one-ninth of the senior cohort (12 percent), and 13 percent of the full-time faculty overall.

• Faculty who are not native-born U.S. citizens constituted one-sixth (17 percent) of the new cohort (25 percent in the natural sciences), one-ninth (12 percent) of the senior cohort (14 percent in the natural sciences), and 13 percent of the full-time faculty overall.

• New faculty, like senior faculty, earned their highest degree in their early thirties (ages 31-32), but did not assume their current position, on average, until about 7 years later, compared to about 4 years later for the senior faculty.

• New faculty were more likely than senior faculty to have had prior work experience and, indeed, work experience outside academe prior to assuming the position they held in the fall of 1992.

• One-third (33 percent) of the new cohort were in non-tenure-eligible positions as compared to one-sixth of the senior faculty (16 percent), and females among new cohort faculty were more likely than males to hold such non-tenure-eligible appointments (40 versus 28 percent, respectively).

• New faculty were more likely to be dissatisfied with their job security and their prospects for advancement than senior faculty, but five out of six of both new and senior cohort faculty were satisfied with their careers overall.

In considering the implications of the changing ccharacteristicsof the new generation of academics, the starting point must be the large size of this cohort. Because the new-entrant cohort is so large-fully one-third of all full-time faculty-it is likely to have a much more pervasive influence in shaping academic values and practices in the years ahead than if the new cohort had been substantially smaller. What, then, are the implications that can be drawn from this sizable cohort's characteristics?

First, the new cohort is demographically different from the senior cohort. White males were the dominant presence in the older cohort. With the increasing presence of women and minority faculty, the white males' "share" has shrunk-although they still maintain their overall plurality.

Second, the proportion of the faculty within the traditional arts and science fields is shrinking, with concomitant expansion in the proportion of faculty in the professions and occupational programs. The liberal arts core of higher education is declining numerically, and that will likely mean a weakening among the faculty of the values associated with doctoral education in the traditional arts and sciences.

Third, the proportion of faculty who are tenurable (either tenured or tenure-track) is shrinking. As increasing numbers of faculty appointments are made in other categories-some short term, others longer term, but all less closely coupled with the host institution and its future-the proportion of tenure-track positions is contracting.²

Fourth, it appears that different sectors within higher education are being affected differently by prevailing conditions. That is, data from NSOPF:1993 suggested that faculty in some types of institutions were faring better than their counterparts in other types of institutions. In particular, new faculty at 2-year community colleges defied the trend of declining job satisfaction perceptible in other institutional sectors: they were as satisfied as their senior, more established colleagues. Moreover, faculty at 2-year community colleges were the most satisfied with their salary and benefits. Faculty at private liberal arts colleges were least satisfied overall-senior as well as new entrants.

In sum, the faculty responses to NSOPF:1993 provide a lens through which the future of the academic profession and, indeed, of higher education can be viewed. The lens may be more translucent than clear; unpredictable events will intervene to recast higher education's future. But the view from the vantage point afforded by this survey presages a faculty more richly diverse in their origins and in the careers they are pursuing.