The University of California campuses are among a small but growing number of research universities adopting new policies--or reinvigorating old ones--that allow tenure-track and tenured professors to work part time. Typically, professors interested in scaling back their work want more time to care for young children, a sick relative, or an aging…

Although work-family balance policies are slowly becoming the norm at four-year institutions, they are not equally common at community colleges. In part, this discrepancy is due to the cost of providing assistance to faculty. Unlike community colleges, research institutions tend to have sufficient resources to offer accommodations for faculty,…

Universities of Technology (UTs) offer career-focused education in a wide variety of disciplines and fields. Traditionally, UTs recruited academic staff with relevant workplace experience, rather than academic qualifications. The result of this strategy was, while many lecturers possessed professional qualifications in their field, they did not…

This report presents selected findings from the Public School and Private School Data Files of the 2011-12 Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS). SASS is a nationally representative sample survey of public and private K-12 schools, principals, and teachers in the 50 states and the District of Columbia. School districts associated with public schools…

Data about compensation received by employees in Illinois' 48 Illinois public community colleges are gathered by the Illinois Community College Board (ICCB). Data in the "Fiscal Year 2009 Salary Report" reflect the census date of October 1, 2008. Data are presented by peer groups with statewide totals. The seven peer groups are based on…

Part-time faculty play an important role in creating a culture of integrity on campus, yet they face a number of structural constraints. This paper seeks to improve our understanding of the potentially unique experiences of part-time faculty with academic misconduct and suggests ways to more effectively involve them in campus-wide academic…

Using data from eight academic departments and 361 courses taught during a semester, the author examined differences between full-time and part-time faculty in the areas of general demographic variables, student evaluation of teaching outcomes, and the distribution of grades earned. The author expected full-time faculty to exhibit higher teaching…

In this article, the authors provide a description of the academic climate in New Mexico. Like many other places in the world today, New Mexico is trying to find an identity in an environment that the authors label "increasingly privatized, corporatized, and militarized." New Mexico's higher education salaries are lower than those in…

At a time when colleges are under increasing financial pressure to rely more on part-time instructors, three new studies suggest that doing so erodes the quality of education many students receive. Part-timers' inability or unwillingness to devote more time to students outside the classroom, the research suggests, results in the denial of…

First-year college students are significantly more likely to drop out if their high-stakes "gatekeeper courses" are taught by part-time instructors, according to the findings of a study presented during the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association last week. The paper is the latest in a long parade of studies suggesting that…

There has been considerable debate in community colleges over the last forty years regarding the impact of increased use of part-time faculty (PTF) on student learning. It has been argued that part-time faculty fail to provide the same level of teaching quality as full-time faculty (FTF). The purpose of this study was to determine the impact of…

Nationally adjunct faculty comprise almost 70% of all two-year institution faculty while in the Virginia Community College System (VCCS) adjunct faculty teach 60% of the community college courses, and should past trends continue, the number of adjunct faculty members is expected to grow 10% within the next fifteen years (Caliber, 2007; Phillipe…

Various factors are making faculty leadership challenging including the rise in part-time and non-tenure-track faculty, the increasing pressure to publish and teach more courses and adopt new technologies and pedagogies, increasing standards for tenure and promotion, ascension of academic capitalism, and heavy service roles for women and people of…

The SREB Fact Book on Higher Education includes data on the population and economy, enrollment, degrees, student tuition and financial aid, faculty and administrators, revenue and expenditures. With more than 100 tables of detailed information, the Fact Book is one of the nation's most respected and most comprehensive collections of comparative…

The purpose of this report is to explore the issue of professionalism of adult education ESL educators and uncover any inequities. The arc of this exploration describes the history of adult education, the current state of adult education ESL professionals, and the direction in which ESL adult educators appear to be heading. The results illustrate…