New Generation of Faculty Members Sets New Priorities

Posted March 5, 2000
By News editor

As higher education increasingly moves toward more non-tenure track positions, new faculty say they consider a wide range of factors, beyond tenure-track appointments, when considering a job, according to a new study conducted by the Project on Faculty Appointments at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Although doctoral candidates and new faculty still regard tenure as important when seeking employment, they will consider non-tenure over tenure-track positions if jobs meet other conditions, including desirable geographic location, balance of research and teaching, and competitive salary. Results of The Faculty Recruitment Study were presented by senior researcher Dr. Cathy Trower at the American Association of Higher Education's Annual Conference in Anaheim, California on March 31, 2000.

A Very Different Generation

"This generation of scholars is very different from previous cohorts," says Trower. "They entered academe in a tight labor market with fewer tenured and tenure-track positions in many disciplines, most especially in the social sciences and humanities. In other disciplines such as computer science, engineering, and business, scholars have an enormous outside market for jobs. The openness that younger scholars show toward considering non-tenure options reflects, in part, their experience of a dramatically changed work environment but also their values."

The Faculty Recruitment Study, conducted by Trower, shows that young scholars at the top institutions in the country weigh many factors as they consider academic employment. Almost 700 first- and second-year faculty and over 2,000 doctoral candidates in the leading 25 programs in the sciences, humanities and social sciences and the top 50 programs in business, engineering, and education responded to a web-based survey between October, 1999 and January, 2000. The response rates were 58% and 39% respectively.

As institutions have taken steps throughout the 1990's to reduce the number of tenured faculty by hiring part-time and non-tenure track faculty, by offering early retirement packages, and by raising the tenure bar, tenure is harder to achieve for young scholars. These changes in hiring practices have become the focus of intense controversy in higher education. However, the debates have been conducted largely without the benefit of hard data and analysis, relying instead, on anecdotes.

Balancing Life and Work

When asked the level of importance of 19 job factors, the majority of faculty and doctoral candidates say that having institutional support for their research, quality of their department, quality of the institution, and the teaching load are very or extremely important.

But doctoral candidates place a much greater level of importance than faculty on time for family and other personal obligations/interests (79% v. 53%), the content of courses to be taught (70% v. 57%), and job security (68% v. 49%). Doctoral candidates place a somewhat greater level of importance than faculty on class size (32% v. 23%) and flexibility of work schedule (71% v. 61%).

The Importance of Geography

In an effort to examine job choice more deeply, beyond the simple rating of job factors as important or not, conjoint analysis was used. This statistical method uncovers more reliable levels of importance by revealing how respondents make tradeoffs among job offers as the job factors vary systematically. To examine how faculty make job decisions, survey respondents saw 16 sets of job offers and were asked to select one, the other, or neither. In addition to whether the positions were tenure-track or non-tenure-track, the jobs varied along other factors including: mix of teaching and research, location, salary, quality of the department, institutional prestige, length of contract for non-tenure-track, and the expected chances of tenure/contract renewal.

Two quality of life attributes (geographic location and balance of work) ranked ahead of all others, including many long thought to be the most important in academic job choice: salary, department ranking, institutional prestige, and the length of the non-tenure-track contract. Consistently, where faculty will live and work and what work they will be expected to do weigh first and second in the decision. Salary typically comes in fifth and institutional prestige last.

The Implications of Race and Discipline

Overall, faculty and doctoral candidates express very similar views about tenure and academic freedom, but there are significant variations by race and discipline. Males and those in the social sciences believe more strongly that tenure is vital to protect academic freedom. Those in the sciences, non-tenure-track, and faculty of color believe the most strongly that academic culture has more to do with the protection of academic freedom than the nature of the employment contract (on or off the tenure-track). Non-tenure-track and faculty of color believe the most strongly that academic freedom can be assured through contractually enforceable language. Those in the social sciences believe the most strongly that tenure-track and tenured positions command more respect than non-tenure-track positions.

Satisfaction with Current Position Differs

White faculty are significantly more satisfied than faculty of color on 13 of 19 job factors. The factors with the greatest difference in satisfaction between faculty of color and white faculty are: employment opportunities for spouse/partner, level of students taught, number of students in classes, number of courses and preps, quality of students, and compensation.

Tenure-track faculty are significantly more satisfied than non-tenure-track faculty on 7 of 19 factors. The factors with the greatest difference in satisfaction between tenure-track and non-tenure-track faculty are: job security, institutional support for one's research, and compensation.

The Non-Tenure Track

While the choice set exercise showed that faculty and doctoral students will accept non-tenure-track offers under the right conditions, both groups have certain perceptions about what they are sacrificing when they choose non-tenure-track. Faculty and students believe that employment security, the opportunity to obtain a faculty position elsewhere, involvement in campus governance, influence in one's department, and status are much greater on the tenure-track than on the non-tenure-track. On the other hand, both groups also believe that stress and pressure to conduct research are greater on the tenure-track.

Tenure-track faculty and doctoral students believe that professional autonomy and academic freedom are greater on the tenure-track than on the non-tenure-track. However, non-tenure-track faculty believe that those factors are about the same on or off the tenure-track. Other factors that non-tenure-track faculty feel are about the same are pressure to excel in teaching, the ability to move to a position at another institution, and the ability to balance one's professional and personal life.

The Draw of Less Pretigious Institutions

Faculty applied to Research Universities (74%) more than to any other type of institution, by a wide margin, while more doctoral candidates plan to apply to Comprehensive State Colleges (94%) more than to any other type of institution. In a dramatic shift from previous generations of scholars, doctoral candidates are much more open to employment in Community Colleges (44%) and are much less interested in applying to Research Universities (12%).

Likely to Leave Academe?

Faculty were asked about their plans if they are unsuccessful in their bid for tenure, or if their non-tenure-track contract is not renewed. While most (74%) are certain or very likely to seek a full-time tenure-track job at a different institution, 40% of tenure-track faculty and 34% of non-tenure-track faculty are certain or very likely to leave academe.

Background

Pressures to reinvent academic careers, reformulate academic appointments and broaden the spectrum of employment arrangements are intense and steadfast. The Harvard Graduate School of Education's Project on Faculty Appointments is addressing those pressures by developing a national resource for academic policies; by undertaking policy-oriented research that illuminates pivotal areas of policy and practice; and by providing decision-makers with the necessary information to discuss, design, and implement policy changes mutually beneficial to faculties and institutions. The Project acts as a resource for faculty members, administrators, boards, and policy makers in reexamining faculty employment policies. The Project is supported by a grant from The Pew Charitable Trusts.

Dr. Cathy Trower holds a Ph.D. in higher education administration from the University of Maryland, College Park, and an M.B.A. and a B.B.A. from the University of Iowa. Trower has worked in higher education, at Mount Mercy College, Johns Hopkins University, University of Maryland, and now the Harvard Graduate School of Education, for 16 years as a faculty member, an administrator, and currently as a researcher.

Information on tenure and other topics can be found at the Project on Faculty Appointments.

Dr. Trower, senior researcher at the Project on Faculty Appointments and author of The Faculty Recruitment Study, is available for comment.