31, no. 1 (Fall 1999): 60-69 To the Editor Search

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IN RESPONSE to questions posed by the public, by state and federal legislators, and particularly by parents of college students about the value of higher education and, more specifically, about the work of college faculty, the MLA undertook a survey of staffing patterns in modern languages at the college level for the academic year 1996-97. Especially troublesome is the impression that present practice seems to reserve senior faculty for the upper end of the curriculum and that the reward system privileges research and publishing to the detriment of teaching. Colleagues in the field of modern languages have also been looking critically at the way our present hierarchy of faculty appointments works administratively and instructionally. The information collected here does not solve the problem posed by the system but is intended to enlarge the picture of what we know about the distribution of faculty of different ranks teaching at various levels of the curriculum and about the growing reliance on part-time and full-time non-tenure-track faculty to teach undergraduates. The evidence that these statistics provide has implications for the reward system, for the job market, and ultimately for the quality of teaching and learning at institutions of higher education.

In May 1997, questionnaires were sent to the chairs of 154 departments of foreign languages in a stratified sample chosen from among departments participating in at least one ADFL Summer Seminar during the 1992-96 period. Three characteristics were considered in choosing the sample strata: institutional size, type, and source of funding (table 1). The number of departments in each subgroup was determined by the representation of each among all four-year foreign language departments. Since there are fewer doctorate-granting institutions overall, departments in those institutions were oversampled to ensure that an adequate number would be included in the analysis. The data were subsequently weighted to correct for this oversampling as well as to reflect better the distribution of four-year foreign language departments among institutions of different types and sizes with different sources of funding. Community colleges were not surveyed, not because we thought they were unimportant but because the number of seminar participants from community colleges was very small. Since their characteristics differ markedly from those of four-year institutions, they perhaps require a different study. A total of 129 departments from 115 institutions responded to the mailing, representing 84% of those to whom questionnaires were sent, or about 8% of the 1,580 departments in four-year institutions. The differences between the institutional data for the weighted sample and for all institutions housing foreign language programs were examined and found to be very small. It is possible, however, that those departments that participate in the ADFL Summer Seminars differ quantifiably in some way from the general population of United States foreign language departments in four-year institutions, in which case the data presented here may not precisely reflect that larger population.

This survey is the first of its kind conducted by the MLA, and thus it is difficult to track changes through time. The large study of foreign language programs conducted in 1987-89 provides a few comparable figures, but the focus of the part of the study that deals with faculty size and composition (Huber, "1987-89" 15-18) examines characteristics of faculty members, such as highest degree attained and native- or nonnative-speaking, and not the distribution of tenured and nontenured faculty members in different kinds of courses. Comparisons are made where possible, but caveat lector, the sample for the 1987-89 study was much larger than this one and included community colleges. Further, the small size of the present sample and the limited number of variables used to establish representativeness mean that the survey findings are best regarded as indicative rather than definitive. Experiential and anecdotal evidence, however, suggests that it is doubtful that a very different picture would emerge from a larger study.

Table 2 shows statistics on the different faculty groupings in responding departments: 99.5% of the departments surveyed had tenured and tenure-track faculty, with an average of 9.4 faculty members in that category. Comparable figures for 1987-89 (Huber, "1987-89" table 13) are 90.4% departments with a median of 8.3. (Note that table 13 lists the category as "Full-time tenure-track," but the text indicates that both tenured and tenure-track faculty are included.) The number of departments reporting full-time non-tenure-track faculty members has gone up from 65.5% to 71.5%, with the mean moving from 3.3 to 3.7 faculty members; departments with part-time faculty members rose from 77% to 84.5%, with the mean number of teachers rising from 5.1 to 6.1. These figures are striking because of the absence in the 1996-97 survey of two-year colleges, where the bulk of part-time faculty teach. It is noteworthy that departments with graduate teaching assistants rose from 28.4%, with an average of 15 TAs, to 35.8%, with an average of 19.6 TAs (see table 2A). The increase implies a rise in graduate school enrollments or a greater need for TAs because larger enrollments in introductory courses have not been accompanied by an increase in the number of full-time faculty.

Table 2B indicates a trend in staffing patterns: in 1987-89, 45.4% of faculty members were tenured, 15.5% were full-time non-tenure-track, and 27% were part-time; in 1996-97, 39.8% were tenured, 15.5% were full-time non-tenure-track, and 30.1% were part-time, despite the lack of two-year colleges in the sample. Comparable figures for tenure-track faculty, that is, assistant professors, are not available. (See tables 2C and table 2D and Huber, "1987-89" table 14 for further details.)

The changes in these figures over the nine-year period may seem small, but they are part of a national trend that perpetuates accommodations made over the years to an increasing student body and flat or deflated budgets. Table 3 demonstrates dramatically that between 1975 and 1993 the number of part-time faculty in higher education (including two-year institutions) increased 97%, the number of non-tenure-track faculty increased 88%, while the number of full-time faculty actually shrank 13% in relation to the size of the student body. As the number of part-timers increased overall so did their percentage among all four-year faculty, which rose from 19.6% to 25.4% in the decade from 1972 to 1983, slowed to a two-point increase from 1983 to 1991, and jumped from 26.7% to 29.5% between 1991 and 1993 (table 4). The infusion of temporary labor, a stopgap measure for teaching large numbers of students as cheaply as possible, has became thoroughly institutionalized; it is now an integral part of the system of interrelations among faculty members, students, and administrators.

As we see from table 2B, the number of tenured faculty in foreign language departments decreased approximately 6% between 1987-89 and 1996-97 while the number of part-time faculty rose 3.1% despite the absence of two-year colleges in the 1997 sample. There is a strong relation between size of enrollments and size of faculty, however, and the decrease in full-time faculty, especially for undergraduate teaching, affects the way departments can meet instructional goals. The 1995 foreign language enrollment survey shows that the number of students registered for foreign languages was 3% lower than in 1990 but higher than in the previous survey of 1986 (Brod and Huber). Since students are not universally required to take foreign languages at the college level, enrollments are of great concern to most faculty and certainly to chairs. Non-tenure-track positions, both full- and part-time, have become the instruments by which foreign language departments have been able to add sections of introductory courses, maintain small class size, and teach some of the less commonly taught languages (table 5), thus keeping up with student demand and safeguarding the number of full-time equivalents. But whether enrollments always drive the number of faculty lines is a question. It should also be noted that, at times of fiscal constraint, if departments have to reduce their teaching staff even to the point of cutting out some languages, they may have to turn students away. Thus it seems that the size of the permanent faculty, a factor often determined by institutional mission, financial condition, and the views of administrators on the value of learning foreign languages and cultures, may have a heavy influence on the size of the student body as well.

Recognizing, however, that temporary teachers are an essential part of our departments, the survey also queried their working conditions (table 6). Part-time teachers are at the lowest end of the scale; each institution has its own practices, and salaries range from $1,000 to $6,000 per course, with an interquartile range of $1,800 to $3,000 per course for the minimum and $2,000 to $3,500 per course for the maximum. Nearly 88% of departments report that part-time faculty members receive contracts, a seemingly large number, especially if it means the long-term contracts that Robyn Warhol discusses in her 1997 ADFL Bulletin article. A contract may pertain only to salary and course assignment, however, without assurances of benefits, security, or participation in departmental activities. The percentage of departments in which part-time faculty receive benefits (38%) is more in line with what we would expect from recent studies (see "Part-Time Appointments"). For example, since only 42.5% of departments that provide benefits contribute to retirement, part-time faculty in only 16% of all responding departments with part-time faculty have any kind of pension.

Non-tenure-track full-time appointees receive salaries ranging from $18,000 to $60,000, with interquartile ranges of $25,000 to $33,000 and $29,000 to $38,000, representing the more typical pay scale from $25,000 to $38,000 (table 7). Almost all departments hiring such faculty (95.6%) contribute to benefits, and many also include these faculty in curriculum development, dispersal of travel funds, and other departmental activities. These faculty may be better treated than part-time faculty, but they fare considerably less well than their full-time tenure-track colleagues. Besides the fact that they are much less well paid, teach more, and teach primarily lower-division courses, one of their chief disadvantages is that they do have contracts that often limit the number of years they can teach. In some departments--such as the Spanish department at the University of Minnesota, described by Constance Sullivan in the Fall 1998 ADFL Bulletin--the increase in such positions has created a new underclass of faculty whose very contracts for terms of appointment exclude them from tenure and who probably won't be able to move into tenure-track positions because they do not have the luxury to do research.

Body count is not the whole picture. Table 8 displays information about the average percentage of sections taught by different ranks of faculty. Tenure and tenure-track faculty teach only slightly more than half of all courses while non-tenure-track full- and part-time faculty are responsible for about a third and graduate students almost a tenth. Together the untenured ranks teach just over two-fifths of the course sections. While the tenured and tenure-track faculty taken together teach a respectable 40.7% of introductory courses, the rest, 59.3%, are taught by non-tenure-track staff. The situation changes for upper-division literature courses, where tenured and tenure-track faculty teach 86.1% of the sections, more than six times the 13.9% that the nontenured faculty teach. In departments that reported non-tenure-track faculty members, 20.1% of courses were taught by these individuals, and of those that reported graduate student teaching assistants, 29.2% of the courses were taught by TAs (table 9.)

The system for staffing varies greatly by departmental type, as shown in tables table 10A, table 10B, table 11A, table 11B, table 12A, table 12B, table 12C. In BA-granting departments the percentage of courses taught by tenure-track faculty is 65%, while non-tenure-track and part-time faculty have almost an equal share of the teaching burden--13% and 12% respectively--and graduate students, as one would expect, play no significant role (table 10B). In MA-granting departments, which tend to be in large and state-supported institutions, tenure-track faculty teach more sections but a smaller percentage of the curriculum (45.1%), while nontenured faculty, much as in BA-granting departments, teach 12%; part-time faculty, however, teach 28.1% of all courses and graduate teaching assistants teach almost 15% (table 11B). In PhD-granting departments tenure-track faculty teach only 29.1% of undergraduate offerings, while 20.5% are taught by non-tenure-track faculty, only 5.2% by part-timers, and 45.1% by graduate students (table 12B). Table 13 gives a slightly different perspective to the relation of institutional types by showing the size of the student body, the faculty composition, and the number of majors. The highest percentage of majors are found in BA-granting institutions (1.4%), where the full-time tenured and tenure-track faculty to major ratio is 1 to 4.2. The likelihood of majors in MA-granting institutions (.80%) and PhD-granting institutions (.53%) is similar. The equivalent faculty to major ratio is 1 to 6.8 in MA-granting institutions and 1 to 7.5 in PhD-granting institutions. The differences in these figures have to do with institutional purpose, the kinds of students attending, and the size of the institution. BA-granting institutions are often small, selective liberal arts colleges with an emphasis on teaching. Thus a considerably larger percentage of tenure-track faculty teaching overall is to be expected. In PhD-granting institutions, however, it is assumed that tenured faculty members are busy teaching graduate as well as undergraduate courses, and therefore their presence in the undergraduate curriculum is limited. These institutions, though, offer more course sections per department (150.6) than MA-granting and BA-granting institutions (136.2 and 63). Since they offer a greater number of course sections and have much larger student bodies, a substantial average percentage of course sections are taught by graduate students (45.1%). Moreover, since teaching is usually tied to support from graduate students, it stands to reason that many lower-level courses are taught by them (tables 12A and table 12B).

The large percentage of non-tenure-track faculty and the small number of teaching assignments for tenure-track faculty suggest a trend toward contract appointments in lieu of assistant professorships in PhD-granting departments. The numbers of full-time tenure-track appointments in those departments have declined considerably. Sullivan writes that her department, which first hired full-time faculty on yearly contracts in 1994, now has thirteen tenured and tenure-track faculty and thirty-nine non-tenure-track appointees. Graduate TAs teach 39% of first- and second-year Spanish courses, and the non-tenure-track appointees teach 53% of first- and second-year Spanish courses and 34% of intermediate courses. Aside from two professors in second-language acquisition, none of the tenure-track faculty members is involved with language teaching at all. Sullivan believes her department is atypical of PhD-granting departments, but it may signal a trend. Articles in the Chronicle of Higher Education suggest that the slow but silent epidemic of contract positions is one way administrations are undermining tenure (Lataif; Vazzano; Wilson). Such a finding is corroborated by MLA placement surveys in which the percentage of PhDs finding tenure-track appointments declined from 46% in 1976-77 to 40.6% in 1996-97, the percentage of those accepting full-time non-tenure-track appointments increased from 18.7% to 26.7%, and the percentage of those who took part-time employment remained about the same (Huber, "1993-94" 68; "New Data").

The deployment of faculty teaching loads varies greatly according to institutional type. The number of full-time tenure-track faculty involved in the undergraduate curriculum, particularly at the lower levels, decreases as the final degree offered goes up; that is, in BA-granting institutions tenured and tenure-track faculty teach 65.4% of all courses; in MA-granting institutions they teach 45.1%, and in PhD-granting they teach 29.1%. As I note above, the small percentage of tenured and tenure-track faculty teaching undergraduates at PhD-granting institutions may be due to commitments in the graduate curriculum or reductions in the number of full-time tenure-track positions funded; nevertheless, the absence of these faculty members in the undergraduate curriculum is cause for concern. The reliance on TAs in PhD-granting institutions and on part-time faculty in MA-granting institutions for the teaching of introductory sequences does not make good educational sense, but not because TAs or part-timers are bad teachers. This staffing pattern exacerbates the separation between upper- and lower-division courses at a time when departments are encouraging students to continue as majors or minors and to gain higher levels of linguistic and intellectual achievement. Dorothy James, Heidi Byrnes, and others ("Responses") urged a rethinking of the course offerings of language and literature departments into a curriculum that integrates language, literature, and culture and that is taught by all faculty at all levels. Staffing arrangements, however, are part of a system that is under constant pressure to meet student demands for different kinds of courses and to respond to administrative demands for flexible hiring programs, so such reform, though necessary, faces many obstacles.

The author is Director of Foreign Language Programs and ADFL at the Modern Language Association

Note

Special thanks are due to Natalia Lusin and Judy Strassberg for their attentive help on this study.

Works Cited

Brod, Richard, and Bettina J. Huber. "Foreign Language Enrollments in United States Institutions of Higher Education, Fall 1995." ADFL Bulletin 28.2 (1997): 55-60. [Show Article]

Byrnes, Heidi. "Governing Language Departments: Is Form Function?" ADFL Bulletin 29:1 (1997): 7-12. [Show Article]

Huber, Bettina J. "The MLA's 1987-89 Survey of Foreign Language Programs: Institutional Contexts, Faculty Characteristics, and Enrollments." ADFL Bulletin 24.2 (1993): 5-38. [Show Article]

------. "The MLA's 1993-94 Survey of PhD Placement: The Latest Foreign Language Findings and Trends through Time." ADFL Bulletin 27.3 (1996): 58-77. [Show Article]

James, Dorothy. "Bypassing Traditional Leadership: Who's Minding the Store?" ADFL Bulletin 28.3 (1997): 5-11. [Show Article]

Lataif, Louis. "Opinion: A Realistic Alternative to Traditional Tenure." Chronicle of Higher Education 26 June 1998: B6.

"New Data from the 1996-97 MLA PhD Placement Census." MLA Newsletter 30.2 (1998): 1-2.

"Part-Time Appointments and the Future of the Academy." Academe Jan.-Feb. 1998: 3-60.

"Responses to Dorothy James." ADFL Bulletin 29.2 (1998): 39-76; 29.3 (1998): 46-68. [Show Article]; [Show Article]

Sullivan, Constance A. "The Corporatized Research University and Tenure in Modern Language Departments: Notes from Minnesota." ADFL Bulletin 30.1 (1998): 59-63. [Show Article]

Vazzano, Frank P. "If Tenure Crumbles, Its Supporters Fear a Gloomy Future for Higher Education." Chronicle of Higher Education 17 July 1998: 33.

Warhol, Robyn R. "How We Got Contracts for Lectures at the University of Vermont: A Tale of (Qualified) Success." ADFL Bulletin 29.1 (1997): 48-51. [Show Article]

Wilson, Robin. "The Faculty: Contracts Replace Tenure for a Growing Number of Professors." Chronicle of Higher Education 12 June 1998: A12.

© 1999 by the Association of Departments of Foreign Languages. All Rights Reserved.

ADFL Bulletin 31, no. 1 (Fall 1999): 60-69

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