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In this year’s Faculty in Higher Education Annual Report from the College and University Professional Association for Human Resources (CUPA-HR), a total of 263,721 full-time faculty positions were reported and salary data on 57,190 adjunct (pay-per-course) faculty were collected. There were 793 institutions that completed the survey. The data collection period for the report ran from November 2, 2020 to January 15, 2021.
Without surprise, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, faculty of all types experienced job losses across all institutional classifications. However, adjunct faculty were the most affected with nearly a 5 percent workforce reduction.
Faculty cuts made during the past year did not disproportionately impact the representation of women and minorities in tenure-track faculty overall as the proportions of women and racial/ethnic minorities within tenure-track faculty are not much different from last year.
Leisure & Recreational Activities and Library Science disciplines sustained the greatest percentage loss in full-time faculty. Business, Management, & Marketing and Biological & Biomedical Sciences sustained the greatest loss in sheer faculty numbers.
The lowest since 2010, the median salary increase for full-time faculty from 2019-20 to 2020-21 was 0.69 percent.
Both the overview of the report and the full report are available from CUPA-HR.
