“Nearly half of campus faculty are now part time, according to a report released last week by the American Council on Education (ACE). According to the analysis of federal data for all types of higher-education institutions, the number of part-time faculty has grown 79 percent over the past two decades, to more than 400,000 out of 1 million faculty. Add to those ranks the faculty who are full time but not on a tenure track and you have nearly two-thirds of all faculty, the report says.
Not surprisingly, the majority of part-time professors (64 percent) work at public, two-year schools. And many people prefer working part-time, the report says. But critics of this shift to nontraditional faculty say that many people are stuck with jobs that offer low pay and few benefits, and that the quality of teaching and academic freedom are being undermined.”
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