Statistical Analysis Report:

Instructional Faculty and Staff in Higher Education Institutions: Fall 1987 and Fall 1992

August 1997

Highlights

This report compares findings from the faculty surveys conducted as part of the 1987-88 National Survey of Postsecondary Faculty (NSOPF-88) and the 1992-93 National Study of Postsecondary Faculty (NSOPF-93). Both surveys gathered extensive information from samples of faculty in institutions of higher education in the United States./1 While the NSOPF-88 faculty survey was limited to faculty and staff who had instructional responsibilities, the NSOPF-93 faculty survey included these individuals as well as faculty who had no instructional responsibilities/2 during the fall. Thus, the comparisons presented in this report include only a subset of faculty from the 1993 study.

An economic recession in the early 1990s coupled with budget deficits in many states resulted in major cutbacks to higher education. Many states reduced appropriations to higher education during this period, forcing public colleges and universities to reexamine their allocation of resources and to consider alternatives for increasing revenues from sources other than the states. Although private institutions typically do not rely on state appropriations, the recession of the early 1990s resulted in operating deficits on many campuses. This report examines a number of areas related to faculty that could have been affected by budget reductions – faculty composition, work requirements, and salaries. Since instructional costs comprise the largest single expenditure of higher education institutions, and faculty salaries absorb the largest share of these instructional costs, changes in faculty policies could result in substantial savings or costs to institutions.

The remainder of this section highlights key findings from each section of the report; it does not provide an exhaustive overview of all findings.

Composition of instructional faculty and staff: Fall, 1987 and Fall, 1992

Academic characteristics

In the fall of 1992, 58 percent of all instructional faculty and staff were employed full time and 42 percent were employed part time. This represents a substantial increase from the fall of 1987 in the percentage of instructional faculty and staff who were employed part time and a corresponding decrease in the percentage who were employed full time (table 2.1).

There was no change in the percentage of instructional faculty and staff who held the rank of full professor between the fall of 1987 and the fall of 1992. However, there was an increase in the percentage of instructional faculty and staff who were instructors or lecturers between the fall of 1987 and the fall of 1992. In both years, the vast majority of full-time instructional faculty and staff employed at 4-year institutions of higher education held one of three professorial ranks (i.e., full, associate, or assistant) in both the fall of 1987 and 1992; however, the majority of full-time instructional faculty and staff employed at public 2-year institutions held the ranks of instructor or lecturer in both time periods (table 2.3).

There was a decline in the percentage of instructional faculty and staff who had tenure between the fall of 1987 and 1992 (from 58 percent to 54 percent) and an increase in the percentage of faculty who were not on a tenure track at their institution during this same time period (from 8 percent to 11 percent, respectively) (table 2.5).

In both the fall of 1987 and the fall of 1992, approximately two-thirds of all full-time instructional faculty and staff at institutions of higher education had a doctoral or a first professional degree (table 2.7).

Social/demographic characteristics

There was a slight “aging” of full-time instructional faculty and staff from the fall of 1987 to the fall of 1992; the average age of faculty increased from 47 years to 48 years during this time period (table 2.9).

Females comprised 33 percent of all full-time instructional faculty and staff at institutions of higher education in the fall of 1992, an increase of 6 percentage points from the fall of 1987 (table 2.11).

Full-time instructional faculty and staff were predominantly white, non-Hispanic in both the fall of 1987 (89 percent) and the fall of 1992 (86 percent), although there was an increase in the percentage of full-time instructional faculty and staff who were black, non-Hispanic (from 3 percent in the fall of 1987 to 5 percent in the fall of 1992) (table 2.13).

Work of full-time instructional faculty and staff: Fall, 1987 and Fall, 1992

Full-time instructional faculty and staff were less satisfied with their workload in the fall of 1992 than they were in the fall of 1987 (table 3.9). In addition, about one-half of the full-time instructional faculty and staff in the fall of 1992 stated that the pressure to increase workload had risen in recent years (table 3.11).

There was no change between the fall of 1987 and the fall of 1992 in the overall duration of the work week of full-time instructional faculty and staff (the average work week was 52.7 hours in the fall of 1987 and 52.5 hours in the fall of 1992 (table 3.1).

There was an increase in two measures of classroom workload between the fall of 1987 and the fall of 1992; student contact hours increased from 300 in the fall of 1987 to 337 in the fall of 1992, and the mean number of classroom hours increased from 9.8 hours in the fall of 1987 to 11.0 hours in the fall of 1992 (table 3.5).

In both the fall of 1987 and the fall of 1992, full-time instructional faculty and staff allocated the majority of their time to teaching activities, the second largest percentage of their time to research, and the remainder to administrative or “other activities” (table 3.3).

There was, however, considerable variation in the allocation of their time to various work activities across different types of academic institutions. At private research universities, full-time instructional faculty and staff reported allocating approximately 35 percent of their time to teaching activities and 35 percent of their time to research activities in the fall of 1992; at public 2-year colleges, full-time instructional faculty and staff spent an average of 69 percent of their time in teaching activities and 5 percent of their time in research activities during this time period (table 3.3).

Research productivity, as measured by the number of publications and presentations produced in the last two years, remained fairly constant for full-time instructional faculty and staff between the fall of 1987 and the fall of 1992 (table 3.7).

Monetary compensation of full-time instructional faculty and staff: Fall, 1987 and Fall, 1992

The total earned income of full-time instructional faculty and staff kept pace with inflation between the fall of 1987 and the fall of 1992; in both years, faculty earned about $60,000 in 1992 dollars from all income sources (table 4.1)./3

Overall satisfaction with salaries decreased somewhat between the fall of 1987 and the fall of 1992 (table 4.5) and overall satisfaction with benefits remained about the same (table 4.7). The decrease in reported satisfaction with salaries corresponds with the lack of a true increase in faculty earnings mentioned previously.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] All accredited, nonproprietary U.S. postsecondary institutions that grant a 2-year (A.A.) or higher degree and whose accreditation at the higher education level is recognized by the U.S. Department of Education.

[2] The reader is cautioned not to put too much emphasis on the exact percentage increase in part-time instructional faculty and staff between the fall of 1987 and the fall of 1992, because the way the NSOPF-93 data were collected and weighted was different from NSOPF-88. See the Technical Notes for details.

[3] Total earned income includes basic salary from the institution, other income from the institution, outside consulting income, and other outside income.

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For more information about the content of this report, contact Linda Zimbler at Linda.Zimbler@ed.gov.