Academic Employment

The American Federation of Teachers has today released a report, "American Academic: The State of the Higher Education Workforce 1997-2007." The full report is available on the AFT web site.

Key findings from the report include:

• The number of full-time tenured and tenure-track faculty members declined from approximately one-third of the instructional staff in 1997 to just over one-quarter in 2007.
• The increased reliance on contingent faculty and instructors is manifested in all sectors of higher education, although the mix varies by institutional type.
• Even if we focus just on full-time faculty positions, the trend toward hiring off the tenure track prevails.
• The number of noninstructional staff grew by 24 percent from 1997-2007, with the most significant growth in the category of professional staff, which increased by 50 percent.
• The number of administrators, the majority of whom were full time, also increased by a substantial percentage.

• [from the AFT web site]