What is an emeritus professor? The emeritus role means different things at different colleges and universities, but generally it has an elusive, ambiguous quality. It may simply mean that a professor has retired with an honorific title acknowledging many years of service to an institution. Or it may mean that a senior professor has transitioned to…

Mid-career faculty are the keystone of the academic enterprise. They fill essential instructional, program development, administrative, and citizenship roles at their institutions. They form a bridge between faculty generations by mentoring new colleagues and assuming leadership duties as their senior colleagues move toward retirement. Mid-career…

The professional lives of "vital" professors in the areas of arts and humanities, mathematics and natural sciences, and the social sciences are examined, and common and subject-area specific factors (such as attributes, activities, and sources of support) closely associated with faculty vitality are identified. Subjects were chosen from…

This brief report summarizes a longer document with the same title. It reviews how college faculty are increasingly collaborating to do much of their work. It notes that the two principal forms of collaboration, teaching and research, are often distinctive arrangements depending on the field of study, institutional environment, and task…

The current knowledge about what distinguishes productive and vital faculty members from their less dynamic peers is considered, along with additional information needs. Most empirical evidence on faculty productivity concerns only research and publication. Information is inadequate about other forms of faculty achievement and vitality, including…

Tables and text summarize differences and trends in gender differences among full-time non-tenure-track (NTT) faculty. Five tables present data on: (1) change in faculty distribution by gender and tenure status, fall 1975-fall 1993; (2) gender distribution of full-time NTT faculty across types of institutions, fall 1992; (3) percent distribution…

Types of initiatives that colleges have implemented to foster continuing faculty career growth and the major attributes essential to success of the efforts are considered. The role of administrators in supporting faculty growth and vitality is also addressed. Several colleges and universities encourage career planning activities in which faculty…

This study examined retirement and other departure plans of full- and part-time faculty and staff in higher education institutions using data from the 1988 and 1993 National Studies of Postsecondary Faculty. Among the study's findings were: 22 percent of full-time and 38 percent of part-time faculty planned to leave their current position within…