You asked (1) what standards higher education accreditation agencies use in reviewing colleges' use of part-time faculty, (2) for the ratios of full- to part-time faculty at Connecticut public college and university peer institutions, and (3) what effect distance learning has on full- to part-time faculty ratios.

SUMMARY

The New England Association of Schools and Colleges' Commission on Institutions of Higher Education (CIHE) accredits all Connecticut public colleges and universities. CIHE standards consider whether a school has an adequate number of faculty to accomplish all of the instructional and other responsibilities needed to fulfill its mission or is “unduly dependent” on part-time faculty. They do not use headcounts or ratios in assessing a school's use of full- and part-time faculty.

The state's higher education accountability system benchmarks each state public college and university against several peer institutions from around the country. Data compiled by the Department of Higher Education (DHE) show that, on average, Connecticut institutions rely on part-time staff somewhat more than their peers around the country. This seems particularly true for the Connecticut State Universities (CSU). The data are displayed in attachments 1 to 3.

We found little data on full-time to part-time faculty ratios in distance learning situations. A 2000 survey by the National Education Association (NEA) of its college faculty members and a 2001 report by the Washington State Higher Education Coordinating Board both indicated that distance learning did not seem to increase the ratio of part-time to full-time faculty.

ACCREDITING AGENCY STANDARDS

The New England Association of Schools and Colleges' Commission on Institutions of Higher Education (CIHE) accredits all Connecticut public colleges and universities. Because these institutions' missions and circumstances vary so much, CIHE does not apply quantitative measures to its standards for assessing faculty (or most other matters), according to its director, Dr. Barbara Brittingham.

Several CIHE standards apply to a school's use of full- and part-time faculty. Its guiding principle for faculty states, “Faculty qualifications, numbers, and performance are sufficient to accomplish the institution's mission and purposes. ” Three other standards address this principle.

In the accrediting process, each school first evaluates itself according to CIHE standards. The school's self-study team uses its judgment to determine whether the school meets a given standard. When this assessment is completed, a team of outside peers from around the region visits the school. The team can (1) identify areas that the school's self-study failed to list as problems and (2) suggest ways to address problems identified in the self-study. Finally, CIHE members and staff review the self-study and peer review analysis. They, too, according to Dr. Brittingham, can make recommendations for action in any area.

PEER GROUP STAFF RATIOS

The law establishes six goals for Connecticut's higher education system and requires a Higher Education Coordinating Council to establish accountability measures to gauge the performance of each public college and university in meeting them. Each constituent unit (UConn, CSU, and Community-Technical Colleges (CTC)) must report annually on these measures. Their reports must include comparisons with various peer institutions around the nation that the DHE and the constituent units have selected as benchmarks for each Connecticut institution (CGS § 10a-6 to -6b).

Attachments 1 to 3 display the ratio of full- to part-time faculty at Connecticut institutions and their peers. The data show that, on average, Connecticut institutions rely on part-time staff more than their peers. This seems particularly true for the CSUs, three of which report more part-time than full-time faculty members (as do nine of their 34 peers). (The data presented for the CSUs and CTCs lump all schools and peer institutions together; in fact, each school has specific peers, and we can furnish you data comparing them. )

These data are not part of the measures the schools normally report; DHE staff compiled it mainly from data the schools submit to the US Department of Education's (USDOE) Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS). But DHE staff believes UConn and Western Connecticut State University's IPEDS data are incorrect, so they supplied data from other sources for these schools. The UConn data (which applies only to the Storrs campus) comes from the common data set, which it also submits to the USDOE. The alternate data for the CSUs comes from the annual spending plans they submit to DHE.

DISTANCE LEARNING

We found little data on full-time to part-time faculty ratios in distance learning situations (i. e. , on-line courses). A 2000 survey by the National Education Association (NEA) of its college faculty members and a 2001 report by the Washington State Higher Education Coordinating Board both showed that the ratios among distance learning and traditional faculty remained consistent.

The NEA represents over 50,000 faculty, mainly in public two- and four-year institutions. It reports that 10% of those surveyed had taught at least one distance-learning course in the previous five years. These “distance learning faculty” resembled traditional faculty in that they were full-time (89%), tenured (73%), and split evenly between full professors (35%) and adjuncts (35%). More (48%) held masters' degrees than a PhD (31%).

Although “these findings appear to dispel the notion that traditional faculty are being replaced by part-time distance learning faculty who offer one course,” the NEA warned that it surveyed only its members. Part-time faculty who taught only one distance learning course, it stated, would be less likely to be NEA members.

“Faculty members teaching distance education courses were no more likely to be part-time faculty that were those in traditional classroom courses,” according to a 2001 study by the Washington Higher Education Coordinating Board. The study found that 27% of CTC distance learning faculty was part-time, while about 10% of such faculty at the state's flagship and state universities held part-time status. Between 3% and 12% of the faculty at the state's public institutions taught at least one on-line course. Washington State University had the highest percentage of faculty (12%) teaching on-line courses; the CTCs had 8. 5% and the University of Washington, 3. 1%.

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