Appendix C
Characteristics of Institutions and Faculty
Many of the factors we consider in this report on faculty retirement—including faculty roles and performance, pension plans and other retirement benefits, institutional costs, and faculty needs—are not the same for the almost 300,000 tenured faculty members at more than 3,200 different colleges and universities. Faculty life differs not only among disciplines within an institution (e.g., whether work requires a laboratory) but also as a result of such characteristics as the proportion of full-time faculty, tenured faculty, and senior faculty; salary and fringe benefit levels; and whether the institution negotiates its faculty policies through collective bargaining. Consequently, the committee was aware that general trends in higher education will not have the same effect on all colleges and universities. Many factors affect this variation:
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size of the institution, with enrollments ranging from less than 200 to more than 50,000 students, and faculty sizes ranging from several dozen to several thousand;
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origin, from the oldest, Harvard, established in 1636 to train young men for the ministry, to more recent church-sponsored colleges, many also now secular; to the land grant colleges established under the 1861 Morrill Act; to the historically black colleges founded both before and after the Civil War; to former teacher-training colleges; to new institutions and branches of institutions serving newly developed or previously underserved areas;
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control, from colleges established and run by a church, to land grant institutions run by a state board of higher education, to private secular institutions whose trustees may be chosen from the local community or all over the world;
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specialization, from the International Bible College to the Colorado
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School of Mines to Juillard and from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to Oberlin College to the California State University system;
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population served, from community colleges serving students from the surrounding area, to private institutions and state colleges serving students from the state or from the region, to public and private universities attracting students from all over the country and all over the world;
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location, from Kodiak Community College (Alaska) to Hunter College (New York), from rural to urban areas, and from affluent to economically depressed areas; and
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faculty characteristics, policies, and governance, which include proportions of full-time and tenured faculty; salaries, which depend in part on control and location; and the way faculty are involved in institutional policy making, which can vary from informal contact with administrators, to formal presence on personnel and other committees, to collective bargaining processes.
For the purpose of understanding how trends and policies will affect faculty and institutions, we sought a way to classify the diverse range of college and universities into simple categories, such as public and private, highest degree offered, or range of subjects taught. We understand, however, that no such classification scheme will capture the diversity in higher education, and we agree with Clark (1987:21), who concludes:
Even the most comprehensive classifications of institutions in American higher education must be seen as rough and ready. There is no one best way to define the boundaries of depicted types; in all schemes, odd bedfellows appear in most categories.
We decided to use the institutional classifications developed by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, which divide colleges and universities into categories by enrollment, subjects taught, number and types of degrees awarded, and the amount of outside research support received annually (Chronicle of Higher Education, July 8, 1987). There are 10 categories.
Research Universities I include 45 public and 25 private universities, among them Harvard, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of California at Berkeley, Texas A&M, and the University of Florida. By Carnegie's definition:
. . . [t]hese institutions offer a full range of baccalaureate programs, are committed to graduate education through the doctoral degree and give high priority to research. They receive annually at least $33.5 million in federal support for research and development and award at least 50 Ph.D. degrees each year.
Research Universities II include 26 public and 7 private universities,
among them Georgetown University, the University of California at Santa Barbara, Florida State University, and Renssalaer Polytechnic Institute. Research Universities II, like Research Universities I, "offer a full range of baccalaureate programs, are committed to graduate education through the doctoral degree and give high priority to research." Also like Research Universities I, they award at least 50 Ph.D. degrees each year. Carnegie distinguishes Research Universities II from Research Universities I by level of research support: Research Universities II "receive annually between $12.5 million and $33.5 million in federal support for research and development."
The National Survey of Postsecondary Faculty (NSOPF) (see Appendix B) estimates that Research Universities I and II together employ 135,000 full-time instructional faculty members—28 percent of all full-time instructional faculty.
Doctorate-Granting Universities I include 29 public and 22 private universities, among them Tufts University, the University of California at Santa Cruz, and the University of Montana. According to Carnegie:
In addition to offering a full range of baccalaureate programs, the mission of these institutions includes a commitment to graduate education through the doctoral degree. They award at least 40 Ph.D. degrees annually in five or more academic disciplines.
Doctorate-Granting Universities II include 34 public and 25 private universities, including Northern Arizona University, Pepperdine University, the Colorado School of Mines, and Drexel University. Like Doctorate I universities, they offer a full range of baccalaureate programs, and their mission includes a commitment to graduate education through the doctoral degree. Carnegie distinguishes them from Doctorate I universities by the number and variety of doctoral degrees granted: Doctorate-Granting Universities II "award annually 20 or more Ph.D. degrees in at least one discipline or 10 or more Ph.D. degrees in three or more disciplines." Doctorate-Granting Universities I and II together employ about 51,000 full-time instructional faculty—10 percent of all such faculty.
Comprehensive Universities and Colleges I include 285 public and 142 private institutions, among them the 19 universities in the California State University system, the University of Portland, Grambling State University, and Worcester Polytechnic Institute. By Carnegie's definition:
. . . [t]hese institutions offer baccalaureate programs and, with few exceptions, graduate education through the master's degree. More than half of their baccalaureate degrees are awarded in two or more occupational or professional disciplines such as engineering or business administration. All of the institutions in this group enroll at least 2,500 full-time students.
Comprehensive Universities and Colleges II include 47 public and 127 private institutions, among them Jacksonville University, Illinois Wesleyan University, and the main campus of Southern Arkansas University. These institutions, like Comprehensive I institutions, award more than half their baccalaureate degrees in two or more occupational or professional disciplines, ''and many also offer graduate education through the master's degree.'' In addition to this slight distinction in the number giving master's degrees, Carnegie distinguishes Comprehensive II institutions from Comprehensive I institutions by the number of students enrolled: Comprehensive II institutions all enroll between 1,500 and 2,500 full-time students. Approximately 128,000 full-time instructional faculty (26 percent) work at comprehensive institutions.
Liberal Arts Colleges I include 1 public and 124 private institutions, among them St. John's Colleges of Annapolis and Santa Fe, Amherst College, Oberlin College, and the State University of New York at Purchase. According to Carnegie, "[t]hese highly selective institutions are primarily undergraduate colleges that award more than half of their baccalaureate degrees in arts and science fields." Carnegie also includes in this category three institutions with a "liberal arts tradition" that meet the criteria for Doctorate-Granting University II: Bryn Mawr College, Wesleyan University, and Drew University.
Liberal Arts Colleges II include 30 public and 409 private institutions, among them Spelman College, Berry College, Oakland City College, and the University of Maine at Presque Isle. Carnegie defines Liberal Arts II institutions as
primarily undergraduate colleges that an less selective and award more than half their degrees in liberal arts fields. This category also includes a group of colleges . . . that award less than half their degrees in liberal arts fields but, with fewer than 1,500 students, are too small to be considered comprehensive.
Liberal arts colleges tend to be small institutions. The NSOPF estimates that they employ 39,000 full-time instructional faculty—8 percent of all such faculty.
Two-Year Colleges and Institutions include 985 public and 383 private institutions, among them Santa Monica College, Sandhills Community College in North Carolina, Essex Community College in New Jersey, and the Katherine Gibbs School in Massachusetts. The Carnegie description of this category is brief. "These institutions offer certificate or degree programs through the Associate of Arts level and, with few exceptions, offer no baccalaureate degrees." About 95,000 full-time instructional faculty work at 2-year institutions—20 percent of all such faculty.
Professional Schools and Other Specialized Institutions include 66 public and 577 private institutions. Institutions in this category include separate medical schools and centers, such as the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Maryland; other schools for health professions, such as Mercer University Southern School of Pharmacy; independent law schools, such as the University of West Los Angeles; business schools, such as Fort Lauderdale College; engineering schools, such as the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology; schools of art, such as the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and music, such as the New England Conservatory of Music; teachers colleges, such as Dr. Martin Luther King College in Minnesota; schools offering religious instruction, such as the American Indian Bible College in Arizona and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary; accredited corporate colleges and universities, such as the RAND Graduate School of Policy Studies; and other specialized institutions, such as the Massachusetts Maritime Academy. According to Carnegie, "[t]hese institutions offer degrees ranging from the bachelor's to the doctorate. At least 50 per cent of the degrees awarded by these institutions are in a single specialized field." More than 40,000 full-time instructional faculty work at specialized institutions—8 percent of all such faculty.
The Carnegie Foundation designed these categories as a typology of institutions, not a ranking. Even these broad categories are not based on obvious divisions: three institutions that meet the qualifications for both liberal arts colleges and doctoral universities are listed as liberal arts colleges in the most recent classification but were previously listed as doctoral universities. Classifications also change as institutions change; between 1972 and 1981, 592 institutions moved from one category to another (Clark, 1987:22). Clark (1987:20) observes:
Liberal arts colleges become typed as comprehensive colleges when they take on more vocational programs. Institutions happily move out of [the comprehensive] category "up" into university status when they begin to give doctoral degrees and garner more research money.
Yet these movements do not imply any rank ordering of types. Clark (1987:20) goes on to observe that "[t]he top fifty liberal arts colleges are serious competitors for the best universities, public and private, in attracting talented students."
In considering not only the variation among categories of institutions but also the "odd bedfellows" within categories, the committee recognizes that the effects of eliminating mandatory retirement will vary from institution to institution within categories as well as between them. We therefore divide institutions by Carnegie categories only as a way of examining general trends linked to institutional type and of indicating basic characteristics of individual institutions. In most cases our discussion combines catego-
ries, referring to research universities, doctoral universities, comprehensive institutions, or liberal arts colleges, rather than distinguishing between Carnegie's two levels of each of these types.
We could not cover the entire range of institutions' faculty policies, but we can indicate some of the differences between institutions by showing the variation in selected factors by institutional type: Tables A-3 and A-4 show the distribution of institutions and faculty by such characteristics as academic degree, percent tenured, and salary. These characteristics are significant for retirement questions because they help determine an institution's faculty costs and its supply of new faculty members, including replacements for retirees. As the data on tenured faculty indicates, some institutions are outside the range of this study because they have no tenure system and no tenured faculty subject to mandatory retirement.
In discussing various institutional policies and possible changes in policies, the committee recognizes that colleges and universities have different policy-making procedures. They vary in level of faculty involvement in governance and in systems of faculty representation. Some of our policy recommendations apply to faculty representatives as well as to administrators, particularly at institutions with formal collective bargaining processes. Table A-5 shows the number of institutions with faculty unions by broad type of institution.
TABLE A-3 Faculty Characteristics by Type of Institution
Type and Control of Institution |
Number of Full-Time Facultya |
Full-Time Faculty with Ph.D. or First Professional Degree (percent) |
Full-Time Faculty at Institutions Without a Tenure System (percent) |
Full-Time Tenured Faculty at Institutions With a Tenure System |
|
Number |
Percent |
||||
Public research |
96,228 |
90 |
1 |
66,000 |
68.9 |
Private research |
39,136 |
93 |
2 |
21,000 |
54.3 |
Public doctoralb |
53,871 |
82 |
0 |
23,000 |
64.6 |
Private doctoral |
22,107 |
89 |
16 |
8,000 |
54.7 |
Public comprehensive |
93,144 |
69 |
1 |
62,000 |
66.0 |
Private comprehensive |
35,160 |
72 |
3 |
19,000 |
54.6 |
Liberal arts |
39,086 |
62 |
13 |
19,000 |
50.6 |
Public 2-year |
91,559 |
19 |
25 |
55,000 |
60.4 |
Private 2-yearc |
|
|
|
|
|
Medicalb |
|
|
|
11,000 |
44.7 |
Other |
14,778 |
68 |
38 |
5,000 |
35.8 |
Total |
489,164 |
67 |
9 |
292,000 |
59.7 |
a At all institutions with and without a tenure system. b In the tabulations of the percent of faculty with Ph.D. or first professional degree, NCES combined doctoral institutions and institutions classified by the Carnegie Foundation as specialized medical schools. c Too few cases for reliable estimates. Sources: Data on faculty with Ph.D. or first professional degree and percent of faculty at institutions with a tenure system is from National Center for Education Statistics, (1990b:14). Data on faculty with tenure is from special National Survey of Postsecondary Faculty (NSOPF) tabulations prepared for this study by the National Center for Education Statistics. |
TABLE A-4 Average Faculty Salaries, 1990–1991 (in dollars)
TABLE A-5 Unionized Institutions by Type and Control
|
Number of Institutions (percent) |
|
Type of Institution |
Unionized |
Not Unionized |
4-year public |
351 (62) |
215 (38) |
4-year private |
70 (5) |
1,389 (95) |
2-year public |
591 (63) |
344 (37) |
2-year private |
15 (4) |
356 (96) |
Source: Data from Douglas (1989:Table 10). |