From: Joe Berry <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Wed, 23 May 2012 12:12:03 -0700

Sean,

Yes, such info does exist, but the stats are not totally reliable for
a number of reasons. I have done extensive research in this area, as
well as on extent of unionization, especially regarding contingent
faculty and would be happy to consult with you privately off list or
on the phone. The quickest place to get the info by institution is the
AAUP's reworking of the US Dept. of Ed., NCES, figures which they
reported in their Contingent Faculty Index, 2006, which I believe is
available online. If not, get it from the AAUP national office.
Unfortunately, the particular faculty statistical survey that NCES did
is no longer being computed and so the most recent figures force us to
use FT and PT as very imperfect stand-ins for contingent vs. tenure
track.

The unionization numbers, more up to date but based on FT/PT, not
contingent/TTT, are available from the National Center for the Study
of Collective Bargaining in Higher Education and the Professions at
Hunter College, CUNY. The final version of the latest edition of the
Directory of Faculty Bargaining Agents and Contracts in the US, which
I co-editied is about to be released, but the prior draft versions are
available at their website or with a phone call to their office.
Google them for contact info. There is also a recent report on the AFT
website which also looks at % of classes taught, but has only a few
examples of particular institutions and the rest is all aggregate.

Hope this is helpful. This is a very important area of research and
the fact that the US Federal Government is cutting back, rather than
expanding, their statistics in this area is a serious problem and, I
think, based both on economic and political motives, but that is just
my personal hunch. For a fuller critiques of the limited and imperfect
state of the existing statistics, see my note on statistics together
with my PhD dissertation at www.chicagococal.org under Resources. For
what it is worth, some other nation's stats are even worse (more
limited), such as Canada. I guess no news is considered good news in
this area.

Please contact me. My contact info is in signature at the bottom of
message. I would love to discuss your research with you.

Joe Berry
On May 22, 2012, at 7:55 AM, Sean Andrews wrote:

Sorry for crossposting:

I am doing some research on higher education in the United States and
I am curious if there is a national database of some kind which would
show or keep track of the number and percentage of adjunct faculty or
other contingent faculty working at particular institutions?  Good
aggregate data is useful too, but I'm trying to compare a handful of
places.

Thanks very much and have a great day.

Best,
Sean Andrews