Faculty Planning Models: A Review of the Literature.
One of the major problems facing institutions of higher learning today is their lack of program flexibility to respond to changing needs, with the composition of the faculty representing a major component of this dilemma. Many of the contributing factors to the problem are all too familiar. Due to a national decline in the traditional college-age cohort, student enrollments are projected to decline substantially in the 1980s. Many institutions are already experiencing the steady-state with respect to faculty size, and retrenchment looms over the horizon. Shifts in enrollment patterns within institutions toward more professional-oriented curricula have resulted in a surplus of faculty in some areas while creating shortages in others. In 1982 the mandatory retirement age will increase to seventy for college professors; thus, some faculty will be working even longer, and additional committed resources will be required. And lastly, the proportion of tenured faculty has skyrocketed; in some instances, faculties are practically "tenured in" even though the Keast Commission [6] warned that a tenure ratio of more than 50 to 67 percent of the total full-time faculty would probably be dangerous for most institutions going into the 1980s. Between 1974-75 and 1975-76, the number of tenured full-time instructional faculty increased by 5.1 percent to a national average of 55.2 percent [2]. While the national average was still within the Keast Commission's range, certain classifications of institutions were well above the recommendation, such as the state-owned institutions of Pennsylvania, where a 90 percent level may already have been reached [14].