Rudy Fichtenbaum has seen a “huge shift in budget priority” recently in higher education.

“Less money is being spent on instruction and more is being spent on administration, while at the same time there’s been a growth in part-time faculty,” said Fichtenbaum, the national president of the American Association of University Professors.

The Campaign for the Future of Higher Education held a conference call Wednesday to discuss the trend of universities and colleges in the United States increasingly hiring faculty on a temporary basis. Campaign members argue that this has caused overall faculty salaries to become stagnant.

Four presenters commented on the CFHE’s paper “Back to School in Higher Ed: Who Needs Faculty?” during the 50-minute call. The presenters were Adrianna Kezar, associate director of the Center for Higher Education Policy Analysis; Gary Rhoades, director of the Center for the Study of Higher Education; Fichtenbaum; and Jennifer Eagan, president of the California Faculty Association.

According to the CFHE’s paper, 75 percent of faculty at universities and colleges in the U.S. in 1969 were either tenured or on the tenure track. Whereas in 2013, 26.3 percent of the faculty were either tenured or on the tenure track.

Fichtenbaum, who is a professor of economics at Wright State University, said that although universities and colleges in the U.S. have seen tenured faculty decrease, they have at the same time seen a growth in administrators.

“We’re seeing a faster salary growth for administrator pay, as if they were CEOs of large businesses,” he said.

Fichtenbaum said this increase in part-time or temporary faculty and increase in administrator pay has had “dramatic consequences” on the quality of student experiences at institutions across the U.S. This comes in the form of rising tuition costs and increases in student debt.

The AAUP study also showed that over a 10-year period, the salaries of faculty across the country only increased by 3.1 percent on average.

Rhoades, who is head of the department of educational policy studies and practice at the University of Arizona, discussed the industry-wide trend of disinvestment in instruction among schools in the U.S.

“There’s a remarkable irony that as students and their families are paying more and more for education, less and less is being spent on instruction,” Rhoades said.

Rhoades said adjunct faculty are paid on average about $3,000 per course.

“The irony we have is amidst this disinvestment, institutions are calling for more student engagement,” Rhoades said. “Make a commitment to us as an institution — like Beyoncé says in the song: ‘Put a ring on it.’”

Published on September 16, 2015 at 9:16 pm

Contact Sara: smswann@syr.edu | @saramswann