The shift toward contingent faculty in the academic workforce is well documented; what’s less clear is the concentration of contingent faculty at different types of institutions, the nature of contingent faculty contracts, and the effect on student outcomes.
Summary
This report, the first in a two-part series based on data provided by the Delta Cost Project at American Institutes for Research, profiles the contingent faculty workforce, examining the number and percentage of full- and part-time instructors not on the tenure track at a variety of colleges and universities. By exploring the relationships between those characteristics and the concentration of contingent faculty, the researchers seek to define the landscape upon which today’s academic workforce operates, and to identify whether contingent faculty are more likely to be employed in certain types of institutions.
Key Insights
- Contingent faculty have increasingly joined the academic workforce across all types of institutions.
- Part-time positions of one year or less make up the largest share of nontenure-track positions at all types of institutions.
- Contingent faculty have substituted for tenure or tenure-track faculty in most types of institutions.
- Colleges and universities with higher shares of students at risk of non-completion also have higher shares of contingent faculty, particularly at private four-year institutions.
