Seventy-five percent. That is the percentage of college presidents surveyed who said that their “ideal faculty” would be composed of teachers on annual or long-term contracts, or part-time, rather than employing tenured faculty.
The Pew Researchers asked the presidents: “Given the choice, which of the following would you prefer make up most of the faculty at your institution: Full-time tenured, full-time annual contracts, full-time long-term contracts, or part-time.” The survey conducted by the Pew Research Center included 1,055 college presidents in a variety of American institutions.
The advantage of using contingent labor, of course, is that it allows employers to pay low wages, and keep wages depressed by holding the threat of replacement over the heads of workers. Contingent worker also do not receive health and retirement benefits that a full time workforce receives. Bottom line: Contract workers are cheaper to employ and easier to jettison.
Not surprisingly the presidents’ responses varied by the type of institution. Fully 91% of presidents from for-profit institutions preferred a temporary workforce. No doubt this reflects their emphasis on minimizing labor costs to improve their institutions’ profit margin. Where profit is involved, administrators will almost always seek to squeeze the labor force to get maximum return for a minimal investment in labor.
A slim majority of presidents at four-year public institutions preferred a faculty mostly composed of full-time faculty. Less than a third of presidents at private four-year institutions preferred full-time, tenure stream faculty. Twenty-eight percent of presidents who emerged from faculty ranks preferred a tenure track faculty compared to just 14% of those who were not faculty before becoming a president.
These results got me thinking and I have a bold proposal. It is a proposal that could dramatically reduce labor costs at universities across the country.
Part-time, contract administrators.
Why not hire college administrators on a contract basis? Hiring administrators on contract would reduce the wages paid to administrators, and the cost of health and retirement benefit. And this proposal has an additional benefit: It would give universities the flexibility to shrink the administrative workforce when budgets become tight.
Now in theory, of course, administrators can be fired on a whim. But it is the rare case that an administrative position is eliminated; administrators who are fired are inevitably replaced at a salary and benefit level that is nearly equivalent. When faculty leave their positions it is highly likely that if they are replaced they are replaced with contingent faculty. In the absence of contingent administrators how can we get the administrative costs of a university under control? By hiring contract administrator we can gain the same “efficiencies” that apply to contingent faculty.
How could administrators possibly object to this arrangement?
Well, administrative leaders could argue that contract administrators will not have the same long-term commitment to the institution that full-time, permanent employees will have. But that is the same, sad argument that is made by faculty. Faculty argue that the promise of tenure, and tenure itself, gives a faculty member a long-term interest in the success of the institution.
They could argue that full-time administrators develop expertise in their positions that is a benefit to the institution. If administrators are constantly being replaced the institution will lose that valuable expertise. Of course, that is another sad argument that is made by faculty; that as faculty mature they become more expert teachers, and develop academic reputations through their research and service in professional associations that enhance the profile of their institutions.
The fact is that my idea will never be considered seriously; nor should it. I offer it only to make a point: many administrators, including college presidents, believe that they are the crucial cog in the university machine; that without them the university would come to a screeching halt. Some administrators seem to feel that the faculty is, at best, a necessary burden of running a university; at worst they seem to think that they could run the place just fine without faculty.*
The fact is we are the people who carry out the academic mission of our institutions. We are the people who are in closest contact with the students. We are the people with whom the students most closely identify. It is the students’ experience in the classroom that keeps them at a university. I have never known an alumnus to return to an institution to visit their favorite administrator.
Yes, we need administration to run the modern university. But with that admission I ask administrators to respect the important role that faculty play. From the university president on down commit to treating faculty fairly, that is, just like they treat themselves, when it comes to ensuring reasonable pay, reasonable benefits, and job security.
* Note: I do not feel this at my current institution; relations between faculty and administration at CI are the best I have ever encountered. But I have felt this at other institutions at which I was employed. P.S. I am a tenured full professor so this caveat is not meant to cover my ass!
