Rethinking Faculty Models/Roles: An Emerging Consensus about Future Directions for the Professoriate
Today, some 70% of faculty at U.S. institutions hold full- or part-time nontenure-track positions, and a return to the days of a largely tenure-track faculty is highly unlikely. What’s less clear is what future faculty models should look like.
The TIAA Institute commissioned a survey of hundreds of higher education stakeholders to gain their views on new faculty models. The results indicate substantial areas of agreement among faculty, administrators and others on many of the proposals listed in the survey, as well as concerns about the feasibility of some changes. Pessimistic views about feasibility, however, may be due more to stereotypes and external pressures than to campus realities.
The survey was administered through national higher education associations in February and March 2015. More than 1,500 higher education stakeholders participated, including tenure and nontenure-track faculty, deans, provosts and accreditors.