Thursday, 4:30 PM
Universities resort to part-timers
By Marcella Bombardieri, Globe Staff
More than half the faculty at Boston, Northeastern, Tufts, and Harvard universities are part-time or are not on the tenure track, according to a report released Monday.
These prominent institutions performed poorly compared with their peers around the country, according to the study by the American Association of University Professors, a union organization.
Professors and advocates for students have raised concerns for years that colleges are increasingly turning to less expensive, temporary labor and eroding the tenure system, to the detriment of students and scholars alike. The study, based on fall 2005 data from the US Education Department, heightens such concern.
At private research universities nationally, 55 percent of academic staff are part-timers, known as adjuncts, or full-timers who do not have an opportunity to earn tenure, the AAUP reported.
At well-known Boston-area universities, the proportions are even higher: 71 percent at Boston University, 67 percent at Northeastern, 66 percent at Tufts, and 57 percent at Harvard, according to the study.
The state’s flagship public university, the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, did better compared with its peers: 35 percent of faculty fall into the non-tenure-track and part-time category, compared with 43 percent of faculty at public research universities nationwide.
Officials at several universities said the study gives a skewed impression of their campuses.
