PSU's Incredible, Shinking Tenured Positions

As bargaining continues, we are beginning to collect together some data that track important trends here at PSU. In several earlier posts I documented the national trend of relying on non-tenured faculty to teach classes. Below, you can see the trend mirrored here at PSU. Let's start with the raw numbers and finish with some talking points. Below is a table illustrating the decline of tenured positions at PSU.

Table: Decline of Tenured Positions at PSU

__________________________1996___2002___2007
Tenure Track/Tenured_______54%____49%____39%
Fixed Term, Full-time______12%____21%____26%
Fixed Term, Part-time______17%____21%____27%
Other (TAs, emerita, etc)__17%_____9%_____7%

A graph of these data begins to show the decline of tenure positions (click to enlarge):

But it's really when you divide tenure and non-tenure positions that you see the dramatic decline (click to enlarge):

The numbers tell the story: as elsewhere, PSU's administration has been shifting the teaching load away from tenured faculty to fixed-term faculty. This saves the administration money and allows them more "flexibility." But we have an important secondary data point that shows even more starkly what this means. Have a look at the table below. In it, you'll see that not only has the teaching load shifted, but the number of students has shifted too (CH = credit hour):

__________________________Mean____Mean____Median
_________________________Class___CH Per___CH Per
__________________________Size____FTE______FTE
Fixed Term________________23.8____37.5_____31.5
Tenured/Tenure-track______22.0____25.5_____20.1

As you can see, fixed-term faculty are expected to teach more students than tenured faculty. The upshot when you combine the two sets of data is this: a far greater number of a student's classes will be taught by non-tenured faculty than would have been the case a decade ago.

Talking Points
AAUP's membership is comprised of more than just tenured faculty. (I'm a fixed-term researcher, in fact.) It's easy to think in terms of our own job category and, for those of us who aren't tenured, to wonder why we should care about this. For me the answer is straightforward. Over the past two decades, we've seen support to faculty diminish in terms of benefits and salary when adjusted for inflation. (Credit where credit is due: our health insurance has remained consistently good.) During that time, even as our salaries flatlined, the administration was saving costs by shifting the teaching load to lower-paid faculty who have no long-term job security.

We have asked PSU to provide details about the growth of administration jobs and salaries during the same period. If it follows national trends, we will expect to see that both salaries and overall job numbers (in terms of total FTE) have grown far faster on the administration side. These are all critical points of information as we look at potential salary cuts for the coming year or two. The takeaway should be this: if the administration has grown fastest during fat times, it should shrink fastest during lean times.

More Salary Data

The American Federation of Teachers (AFT) recently put together some statistics in their report "The State of Higher Education Workforce 1997-2007." It compiles now-familiar information on faculty salaries and the steady decline of tenure-track teaching. Researchers put these findings next to statistics about the growth of administrative staff, and the picture is one I've written about quite a bit on the blog: universities are spending more on administration and less on teaching.

These findings won't shock you, but here they are, from the executive summary:

• The number of full-time tenured and tenure-track faculty members declined from approximately one-third of the instructional staff in 1997 to just over one-quarter in 2007.

While the overall number of faculty and instructors grew over the 10 years, nearly two-thirds of that growth was in contingent labor, which increased from twothirds to nearly three-quarters of all instructional staff.

• The number of administrators, the majority of whom were full time, also increased by a substantial percentage.

This group grew by 41 percent, to a total of about 59,000, between 1997 and 2007. This growth was concentrated in full-time positions, with the number of full time administrators growing by 43 percent and accounting for 99 percent of all administrators.

Talking Points
In every report on higher education, the data tell the same story: universities are spending more on administration and less on education. This has got to be a key message AAUP internalizes as we move forward in tough economic times. It has been administration, not teaching or research faculty nor academic professionals, who have been the winners in the past decade. As we look to cut costs, that message must be clear.

Faculty Salaries are Not Driving Up Costs

Yesterday I quoted from a nice piece talking about the state of higher ed and the sharp increase in the use of adjuncts to cover cost spikes. Below is from an email AAUP General Secretary Gary Rhoades sent out a couple months ago adding to the argument. He offers three critical data points to debunk the myth that faculty salaries are driving cost spikes. I'll quote from his email and then distill it into three handy talking points. First, his points:

1. You can't blame faculty salaries for increases in tuition and costs. Faculty salary increases have been well below increases in tuition and well below increases in senior administrators' salaries, which have increased disproportionately. Adjusted for inflation, tuition increases between 1989 and 2005 averaged about 6 percent a year; between 2002 and 2006, tuition at public universities increased by over 29 percent. From 1999-2000 to 2007-08, the yearly increase in overall average faculty salary ranged from 2.1 to 3.8 percent; adjusted for inflation, faculty salaries either decreased or increased less than 1 percent in six of those years (see table A in the 2007-08 Annual Report on the Economic Status of the Profession). Between 1995-96 and 2005-06, presidential salaries increased by 35 percent, adjusted for inflation, compared to 5 percent for average faculty salaries (figure 3, 2006-07 Annual Report on the Economic Status of the Profession ); from 2005-06 to 2007-08, the two-year increase in senior administrators' salaries outpaced both inflation and the increase in average salary for full professors (figures 1 and 2, 2007-08 Annual Report on the Economic Status of the Profession).
2. You can't blame increases in faculty numbers for increased tuition and costs. Full-time tenure-track faculty numbers have increased at a far slower rate than have numbers of other professionals and administrators. Between 1976 and 2005, full-time tenure-track positions in the United States increased by only 17 percent, compared to a 281 percent increase in nonfaculty professionals and a 101 percent increase in administrators (see figure 3 in the 2007-08 Annual Report on the Economic Status of the Profession).
3. Spending on instruction has declined in all sectors of higher education, while spending on administrative costs has increased. Between 1995 and 2006, overall spending increased, but the share of instruction was down in all sectors (for example, in public master's institutions it was down from 53.9 to 50.8 percent; in private master's institutions it was down from 45.0 to 43.0 percent). The share of student services increased (from 9.9 to 10.9 percent in public master's institutions and from 13.9 to 15.6 percent in private master's institutions), as did that of administration and other support (from 36.2 to 38.2 percent and from 41.1 to 41.4 percent, respectively--See figure 8, Trends in College Spending, Delta Project).

Talking Points
The take-away from the data is stark. Costs are up, but priorities have shifted. Tenure-track and tenured faculty positions are frozen while non-faculty and administration positions have proliferated. As a proportion of the pie, the amount going to faculty continues to decline.

• Faculty salaries have increased far more slowly than tuition increases or administration salaries.
• Since the 1970s, universities have barely added new tenured faculty, but nonfaculty numbers are up 281%, and administration numbers have doubled.
• Administrative costs continue to eat up a larger proportion of total spending, while money devoted to teaching declines.
  

The question to ask is: are these the right priorities for our universities?