American colleges and universities are poised at the edge of a
remarkable transformation. But while rapid technological changes and
increasingly intense competition for funding are widely recognized as
signs of a new era, there has also been an unprecedented though silent
demographic change in the profile of the faculty. In The New Academic
Generation, higher education researchers Martin Finkelstein, Robert
Seal, and Jack Schuster focus on the changing face of academe, as women,
foreign-born, and minority scholars enter the professoriate in larger
numbers and as alternatives to full-time tenure-eligible appointments
take hold.
Looking at who will teach at American colleges and universities in the
future and examining their roles and responsibilities, the authors argue
that the new generation will usher in an era of dramatic change with
profound long-term implications. Finkelstein, Seal, and Schuster base
their analysis on the 1993 National Study of Postsecondary Faculty
conducted by the U.S. Department of Education's National Center for
Education Statistics. The largest national survey of faculty in a
quarter-century, it provides detailed analyses permitting the authors to
describe the characteristics of the relatively new entrants into
academic careers, and to compare them with their more senior colleagues.
The authors present their analysis in 88 tables, describe their
findings, examine future issues for teaching-learning communities, and
provide strategies for strengthening the faculty--and thereby higher
education itself. The challenges posed by this new academic generation,
they conclude, will be one of the defining issues for American colleges
and universities for years to come.
