<p>I wish I'd had this information sooner!
I've asked this question at most of the schools I visited with my kids, and often got vague, unreliable responses from the admissions reps. I didn't know that this information was available from mla.
For me, this is an important factor to consider. I want a school where most of the faculty are full-time, tenured or tenure-track. </p>
<p>Mixed results for the schools on my D's list, but I'm not surprised at the 2 on her list with the highest percentages of tenured profs (where the percentage has gone up since 95 in fact.) They're both places with stand-out reputations for undergraduate teaching, and it was clear from our visits that it wasn't just talk..</p>
<p>I’m not entirely sure what levels are meaningful. While on the one hand you want the departments to have solid stable staff but on the other hand, depending on major, adjunct professors are usually people who work in the real world. Professors that only teach can get stuck in “theoryland” and not really know if the principles they teach are currently being applied.</p>
<p>I definitely think this info is a good addition to have in thinking about the schools though.</p>
<p>If it’s under 20%, it’s probably fine. We’ve had this discussion about part time faculty many, many times in the past, and I predict that these points will be made:</p>
<p>(1) full time professors are more available and more invested in student success
(2) part time professors may have more recent experience in the field
(3) just because someone is part time doesn’t mean they’re a bad teacher
(4) many, if not most, students don’t even know if their prof is full or part time</p>
<p>When I was an undergraduate at McGill University in Montreal, I took a course on Canadian Politics. It was taught by a part time, adjunct faculty member. His name was Joe Clark, a former Prime Minister of Canada. Despite his lack of a doctorate and not being tenure track, he seemed to know what he was talking about.</p>
<p>I just clicked on the link for the institution where I work and the numbers are completely messed up…to the point of claiming hundreds more faculty than we actually employ. YMMV.</p>
<p>In 2009, according to the American Association of University Professors, about 46% of the academic workforce was made up of adjunct professors. In 1975 the figure was 34%. I imagine the 50% mark will be reached soon.</p>
<p>I think you are right ucbalumnus. I looked up Lafayette (my son’s friend goes there) and they are supposed to be very focused on undergrad education, (no Masters programs) so I figured their’s would be low. They have 21% FULL- AND PART-TIME NON-TENURE-TRACK FACULTY MEMBERS</p>
<p>Note that the latest data on that site is 2009, so it might be worth double checking at the school’s website where they often report such “institutional research” data.</p>
<p>Especially in technical fields, adjunct faculty are vital to keeping up with industry trends and real world applications. My husband is an adjunct at a major university in a very new field with few tenured professors who are familiar with it. H has a PhD and has taught at universities for years while consulting and running start-up tech companies. I don’t think students are cheated by having him as an instructor. He has office hours every week and is always available by email.</p>
<p>^^^^^^My thoughts exactly! Parents are often reassured to hear that an actual professor teaches each class without realizing that office hours and even grading in many of these classes might very well be managed by teaching assistants who could even be other undergraduates rather than graduate students close to getting their doctorates.</p>
<p>Golffather, the info they are collecting from individuals is different. The adjunct data is from elsewhere.</p>
<p>Not an adjunct bash, but it does say something about a school. Take what you wish. I have my own experience with adjunct vs tenure track, from both sides (student and prof) and have my own thoughts for what I want as a result.</p>
<p>True, but not sure exactly what it says. :)</p>
<p>For example, since the survey is supported by the MLA…a college might be smart to offer adjuncts in lower enrollment foreign languages – it beats dropping the language altogether! Or, one could argue that educational value might be enhanced by having adjuncts teach introductory writing courses in colleges, particularly the big research Unis. To me, that is win-win.</p>
<p>I was thinking about that xiggi. Depending on the caliber of the TAs, who are the ones in the labs, recitations and workshops, it definitely slants your college experience.</p>
<p>How accurate are these numbers? I was struck by the vast differences among some of the colleges my D has applied to. I also found it interesting the significant increase in adjuncts between 1995 and 2009 for many schools. For example at Rutgers, the number of tenure + tenure-track professors dropped slightly in absolute numbers over that period, but the number of adjuncts increase dramatically so the percentage of tenure+track profs dropped in half from 89.6% to 44.6%.</p>
<p>I think it would be more interesting to know the relative percentage of classes taught, or of relative percentage of students taught by the adjuncts vs the tenure+track profs, since presumably the part-time adjuncts teach fewer classes than full-timers would.</p>