美國大學教師現況、生產力與薪資結構分析

蔡佳翰美國華盛頓大學教育學院

Unprecedented transformation in American higher education due to

The pace of change is uniquely rapid and discontinuous

The foundations of the economy are shifting structurally

A major ideological and philosophical shift in how society views higher education

The growing focus on public investment in higher education and the expanding privatization movement

Changes of American professoriate in profile

In 1970 about 474,000 faculty members (369,000 full-time). By 2001 that base number had more than doubled to 1.11 million.

The proliferation of part-time faculty members

Among the “core” full-time faculty, a series of striking changes is manifest. Institutional Venues Academic Field Venues

Institutional Venues

The local two-year community colleges and public comprehensive universities drove much of the accelerated demand for new faculty.

The typical American faculty member is no longer the research-oriented scholar but rather resides in the public four-year or community college and increasingly part-timers.

Academic Field Venues

In 1969 67.8% of the full-time professoriate in the traditional arts and sciences as their disciplinary home; less than 31.3% situated in the professions or other fields.

By 1998, faculty in the liberal arts fields had shrunk to 56.4% while faculty in the professions and other fields had increased to 43.1%

The demographic transformation of American faculty

Demographically the American faculty over the past three decades have experienced a many-faceted transformation in age, gender. national origin, and race and ethnicity.

Among all full-time faculty, the “traditional” white male faculty stood at about 46% in 1969 but shrank to 28.6% in 1998.

Among the new-entrant cohort, the change is more pronounced.

A common understanding of faculty work role

Most of us are familiar with the basic trinity of teaching, research, and service.

Faculty work consists of a great variety of activities that are critical to the educational missions of their institutions.

Although we can look at some of the quantitative indicators and how they have changed to understand faculty work role, we need to be very careful about the blurred definitions and boundary.

Methodologies for analyzing faculty workload

Two predominant methodologies have been used in recent studies of faculty workload. Activity reporting: attempt to answer

two questions--how much time faculty work and how faculty allocate their time

Equivalency report: convert activities into credit hours and compare to institutional standard

Workload vs. Productivity

Institutional perspective:Workload = Productivity

Faculty perspective: Workload is not necessarily equal to productivity.

Stakeholder perspective: workload = faculty inputproductivity = output of

faculty work

Faculty workload

Since 1984 the average weekly workload of the faculty has increased from about 40 hours per week to nearly 49 about 20%.

During the same period, outside work commitments (consulting, public service, etc.) have remained stable or decreased slightly.

Workload has increased in an types of institutions, but most dramatically at the research universities

Faculty workload (Continued)

The proportion of faculty working more than 50 hours a week has doubled since 1972, rising from a significant minority (23.2% in 1972) to nearly two-fifths by 1998.

Faculty work intensity has affected the four-year, and particularly the university, sector more than the two-year sector.

Mean weekly work hours are higher as well for faculty in the natural sciences and engineering.

Differences between the genders, the races, and he career cohorts are minimal.

At the high end of the working-hours continuum,the majority of natural scientists and engineers, and majorities of males and Caucasian and Asian faculty are represented.

An evolution in the nature and scope the faculty’s work

An increased allocation of effort to teaching is evident

A greater focus on research is reflected in the growing pervasiveness of faculty publication

A progressive diminution in administrative responsibilities

Academic Compensation

Academic compensation is a core element of the financial incentive system that significantly defines and calibrates incentives for academics.

Faculty compensation consists of several distinct components: base salary, supplemental income, outside grants and fringe benefits.

The determinants of faculty salaries

Academic rank Type of institution Institutional control (Public-private

difference) Gender difference Race and Ethnicity

The Increasing Power of Disciplinary Markets

Until the mid-1970s. Disparities in the salaries or faculty in different fields were small and had remained quite stable over time.

Beginning in the mid-1970s, faculty in fields that were in high demand in the general economy (for instance, some engineering and natural science fields, computer science, accounting, and finance) began to be recruited at “market” scale rather than the flatter “union” scale.

The effects of “marketized” compensation

Reallocation of institutional salary funds from low-demand fields to high-demand field.

Salary compression in the high demand field.

Effects of research and teaching as determinants of salary

ln Faculty Work and Public Trust, James Fairweather (1996) examined trends in the salary rewards that accrue to different types of faculty activities. He found that research generally trumps teaching and that quantity of research publications typically trumps quality.