The Chronicle of Higher Education recently summarized the findings of this report:
The AAUP's 2008 faculty-salary report points out that from 1976 to 2005, the number of full-time college administrators (vice presidents and deans, for example), rose by 101 percent, while the number of full-time nonfaculty professionals (in student services, development, and information technology, for example) rose by 281 percent. Over the same period, the number of full-time tenured and tenure-track faculty members rose by only 17 percent.
I showed in a previous post that History has followed or slightly lagged behind this pattern. My analysis revealed that, between 1979 and 2003, the number of full-time history faculty increased only 13.9 percent. The number of part-time history faculty, by contrast, increased more than ten fold.
How do these numbers compare with changes over time in the number of enrolled college students? According to the National Center for Education Statistics, there were 11.2 million college students in 1975 and 17.5 million in 2005. This represents a 56 percent increase over three decades. I find it hard to understand why the number of college administrators has increased at nearly twice the rate of college student enrollment. The fact that full-time staff on college campuses has increased five times faster than student enrollments blows my mind. How necessary were these increases in staff and administrators? Is it really fair that the number of full-time faculty has not kept pace with any of these other changes? Are history faculty willing to put up with this?
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8 comments:
Dear Sterling,
I wonder how many these full-time staff created over the past 30 years work in history? The archives field has increased in importance in the past 30 years, and those positions are almost always classified as staff or admin. And personally, that's how my (new) position at UIC is classified: Visiting Assistant University Historian. I'm without tenure and not on a tenure track, but my all of my work is within the confines of the field.
Is this bad for the field? I'm not so sure. But I concede that it is probable that many of these new staff hires, say 90 percent or more, probably do not work in history.
And don't forget that increases in access for students often involve staff support positions---i.e. advisors, learning center folks, tutors. So while student numbers have increased, perhaps over the last 30 years we're drawing more from underprivileged populations that truly need staff help.
- TL
Tim,
Great points. I agree with you that a lot of the growth in archives personnel and student support staff has been necessary. But what about the explosion in administrators and the high salaries they draw?
-PhDinHistory
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