July 17, 2012
Currently, colleges and universities are hiring more and more part-time instructors to teach, something that professional archaeologists know well. The working conditions of contingent faculty members have not been well-studied, but now the Coalition on the Academic Workforce (CAW) has conducted a Survey of Contingent Faculty Members and Instructors to gather information about these teachers, including how many courses contingent faculty teach, where they teach them, and for what compensation. According to the CAW, 75.5% of instructional staff members were employed in contingent positions either as part-time or adjunct faculty members, full-time non-tenure-track faculty members, or graduate student teaching assistants, as of 2009.
In support of the CAW’s survey, we at the AIA put out a call to our professional members encouraging them to complete the survey, and the results are now in. Although there are no data extracted just for archaeologists, part-time faculty members in the humanities represented the largest set of respondents, accounting for 42.3%.
Click here to read the full report. The survey data file is available to qualified researchers, and CAW urges them to use it to produce further research reports and insights. For information or to request access to the survey data file, please e‑mail CAW (contact@academicworkforce.org).
The Coalition on the Academic Workforce (CAW) works to collect, analyze, and disseminate information on the use and treatment of faculty members serving full- and part-time off the tenure track and to promote conditions by which all faculty members can strengthen their teaching and scholarship, better serve their students, and advance their professional careers.
