these individuals have, in fact, only been in their position five years on average and none really receive on the job training.37 Not having been trained in project management to any significant degree or mentored by someone who has may explain how infrastructure
projects are not properly planned or properly implemented, resulting in cost escalation over time.
Tenure
Tenure is one of those double-edged swords. Initially instituted to protect independent thinking and research, it also had a secondary purpose which was to provide institutional stability. But today, tenure is slowly giving ground to contingent and part-time faculty.
A report published by the American Association of University Professors in March 2023, which was based on IPEDS data from the National Center on Education Statistics (NCES), found that, from fall 1987 to fall 2021, excluding medical faculty:
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dropped from 39 percent to 24 percent.
Also, from fall 2002 to fall 2021, the number of graduate student employees increased 44 percent while full-time and part-time faculty
combined rose 19 percent.38
What this means is that contingent and part-time faculty are involved more and more with the daily duty of teaching students. Kristi Kanel notes that “recent data shows that 75% of
college classroom instructors are non-tenure track educators/adjunct faculty, while about 20% are taught by full time/tenure track faculty which is the exact reversal of ratio in 1969.”39
Why? Not only do their lower salaries cost the institution less, but there is a huge supply from which to draw. As noted by Richard Vedder:
Fewer than 10,000 doctoral degrees were awarded in the 1960 academic year; within a generation (1984), the number passed 100,000 (ten-fold increase) and is expected to double again (to 200,000) this year. The demand for doctorates is stagnant (at least in higher education), but the supply has grown robustly, so the bargaining power of professors in many disciplines is in decline.40
As for institutional stability, the fact so many faculty teaching today are not tenured and receiving low wages means they cannot focus on the best interests of their students as their time is often divided between multiple institutions – and have been for some time. A 2014 congressional report revealed that 89 percent of adjuncts taught at more than one college, while 27 percent worked at three schools and 13 percent taught at four or more, often requiring lengthy commutes between campuses.41
The irony is that adjunct professors – who are most up-to-date on matters of research and scholarship – are the very individuals who are less able to focus on their craft or the students who would be recipients of such recent knowledge and practice.
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