Over the past 70 years, the American university has become the global gold standard of excellence in research and graduate education. The unprecedented surge of federal research support of the post-World War II American university paralleled the steady strengthening of the American academic profession itself, which managed to attract the best and brightest educators from around the world while expanding the influence of the "faculty factor" throughout the academic realm. But in the past two decades, escalating costs and intensifying demands for efficiency have resulted in a wholesale reshaping of the academic workforce, one marked by skyrocketing numbers of contingent faculty members. Extending Jack H. Schuster and Martin J. Finkelstein's richly detailed classic The American Faculty: The Restructuring of Academic Work and Careers, this important book documents the transformation of the American faculty-historically the leading global source of Nobel laureates and innovation-into a diversified and internally stratified professional workforce. Drawing on heretofore unpublished data, the book provides the most comprehensive contemporary depiction of the changing nature of academic work and what it means to be a college or university faculty member in the second decade of the twenty-first century. The rare higher education study to incorporate multinational perspectives by comparing the status and prospects of American faculty to teachers in the major developing economies of Europe and East Asia, The Faculty Factor also explores the redistribution of academic work and the ever-more diverse pathways for entering into, maneuvering through, and exiting from academic careers. Using the tools of sociology, anthropology, and demography, the book charts the impact of waves of technological change, mass globalization, and the severe financial constraints of the last decade to show the impact on the lives and careers of those who teach in higher education. The authors propose strategic policy recommendations to extend the strengths of American higher education to retain leadership in the global economy. Written for professors, adjuncts, graduate students, and academic, political, business, and not-for-profit leaders, this data-rich study offers a balanced assessment of the risks and opportunities posed for the American faculty by economic, market-driven forces beyond their control.

Higher education is becoming destabilized in the face of extraordinarily rapid change. The composition of the academy's most valuable asset -- the faculty -- and the essential nature of faculty work are being transformed. Jack H. Schuster and Martin J. Finkelstein describe the transformation of the American faculty in the most extensive and ambitious analysis of the American academic profession undertaken in a generation. This volume depicts the scope and depth of the transformation, combining empirical data drawn from three decades of national higher education surveys. At once startling and disturbing, The American Faculty provides the context for interpreting these developments as part of a larger structural evolution of the U.S. higher education system.

"The American Faculty is destined to be a classic... The most thorough and thoughtful analysis of its topic in many years." -- Journal of Education Planning and Administration

"A significant resource for data on the American professoriate." -- Academe

"This book and its extensive research appendices are a must-read for scholars who study the academic profession... It will be important for provosts, deans, department chairs, and those who have previously been involved in the 'faculty roles and rewards' movement to read this book and interpret its trends and implications for their own campuses and plans for faculty hiring, professional development, and reward systems." -- Review of Higher Education

"Practitioners and researchers looking for a comprehensive overview of the faculty life with an emphasis on changes in the last 40 years will be well served by reading The American Faculty." -- Journal of College StudentDevelopment

"An impressive piece of work... key reading for anyone interested in the state of academic work." -- Studies in Higher Education

Jack H. Schuster is a professor of education and public policy at Claremont Graduate University. Martin J. Finkelstein is a professor of higher education at Seton Hall University.