Author Description

This report summarizes the highlights and presents statistical data (two-thirds of the report) from a national survey of 35,478 full-time college and university faculty members at 392 two-year colleges, four-year colleges and universities, carried out in the fall and winter of 1989-90. The 200-question survey focused heavily on how faculty members spend their time, how they interact with students, their preferred methods of teaching and examining students, their perceptions of the institutional climate, and their primary sources of stress and satisfaction. Among the findings were the following: (1) although 98 percent gave teaching a high priority, 28 percent preferred research over teaching and 27 percent felt that institutional pressures to do research and publish interfered with their teaching; (2) half the faculty in private universities spent more than 12 hours per week doing research and writing, compared to less than 20 percent of faculty in 4-year colleges and 3 percent in the community faculty in four-year colleges and 3 percent in the community colleges; (3) fully one quarter of the four-year college faculty and an article in a scholarly journal; (4) faculty were most satisfied with their autonomy and independence and job security; and (5) compared to their private counterparts, professors in public institutions gave higher priority to preparing students for employment and conducting research. The appendix contains the survey instrument. Contains two references. (GLR)