A study was done to explore the perceptions of senior and junior faculty women regarding the barriers to success experienced early in their academic careers. The study population was drawn from a colleague pairing program at a major urban research university in the western United States and consisted of 22 junior faculty in tenure track positions…

This study examines the association between three outcomes of the freshman and sophomore years (retention, academic achievement and student rating of instruction) and the amount of exposure to three types of instructors (regular full-time faculty, adjunct faculty and graduate teaching assistants). The growing reliance in higher education on…

While college faculty are experts in their disciplines, teaching expertise is less understood. This paper explores one aspect of the pedagogical content knowledge of faculty new to teaching, specifically, knowledge of student difficulties. The project, conducted at three different institutions, used a case method, employing interviews and…

Just as student centered, collaborative classrooms give students the power to direct their own learning, so too a collaborative, partnership model for the writing staff leads to empowerment and professionalism. At Western Illinois University, involving temporary instructors in the process of curriculum development not only served to boost their…

The use of college staffing strategies to reduce staffing expenditures, to reallocate staffing resources, or to limit the time commitment of resources to a position is discussed, based on the literature and data from the Project on Reallocation in Higher Education. Control of the decision to create a position or hire replacements for departing…

The purpose of this paper was to determine faculty perceptions about the role a department chair does and should play in a faculty member's movement toward tenure. A group of 485 full-time, tenured, and tenure-track faculty from 13 U.S. doctorate-granting universities participated in the study. Answers to the following questions were solicited:…

A study examined untenured faculty at the University of Massachusetts (Amherst) to determine their job satisfaction and work stress, changes in these areas over time, and ways the university could enrich their job experience. Two cohorts were studied via questionnaires. The first cohort comprised first-year faculty (N=23) and the second comprised…

The Osceola Campus (OC) of Valencia Community College, in Florida, has created a three-part faculty development program that is designed to meet the needs of campus faculty, the majority of whom are not tenured or tenure-track, while operating within OC's strict budget constraints. The first branch of the program focuses on creating an…

A study at the University of Missouri-Columbia investigated the stress factors and coping mechanisms among 196 faculty members in 16 departments. The study was undertaken during a period of low faculty salaries in comparison with similar institutions, characterized as moderate to severe financial decline. During the middle of the fall semester of…

This study developed a descriptive profile of an institutional academic marketplace reflecting differences in mobility across rank, disciplines and gender over a 10-year period at one research university. Because the study focused on faculty attrition, data analysis examined reasons for departure by rank, gender and discipline. Data sources…

This paper proposes a five-step process by which to analyze whether the salary ratio between junior and senior college faculty exhibits salary compression, a term used to describe an unusually small differential between faculty with different levels of experience. The procedure utilizes commonly used statistical techniques (multiple regression…

In an effort to understand the persistent lack of representation of females in senior ranks at top research universities this study examined the attitudes of female assistant professors toward 14 possible impediments to their gaining tenure. Subjects were tenure-track assistant professors in a large, public research university where women are…

This study examined the perceptions of African American faculty on their socialization to the academic professional culture, and is based on the premise that the process of such socialization is circumscribed by the organizational culture. Taking a qualitative research approach, the study used a three-part interview process. The focus of the first…

This study examined faculty research productivity in terms of four common explanations for variance in productivity and tested a regression model while controlling for factors such as institutional affiliation, rank, and gender. The study used data from the 1989 survey of the professoriate conducted by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement…

This study explored how junior faculty perceive the academic tenure system impacting on their personal and professional lives and how they cope with the process. Using theoretical principles rooted in the tradition of phenomenology, the study conducted three in-depth phenomenological interviews with 18 assistant professors who explored, recreated,…