Seventy-eight percent of full-time instructional faculty and staff at bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral institutions taught at least one undergraduate class for credit in fall 2003, and 59 percent taught these classes exclusively.

This indicator examines the extent to which postsecondary faculty and instructional staff are directly involved in educating students. It does this by looking at the percentage of faculty and staff in 2003 who had instructional responsibilities that were associated with students earning credit, including teaching classes for credit and advising or supervising students’ for-credit academic activities. Overall, about 90 percent of all faculty and instructional staff at degree-granting public and private not-for-profit postsecondary institutions had such instructional responsibilities in fall 2003 (NCES 2006-176).

Looking specifically at undergraduate teaching, among full-time instructional faculty and staff who taught for-credit classes at bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral institutions, 78 percent taught at least one undergraduate class in fall 2003, and 59 percent taught undergraduate classes exclusively.¹ Instructors and lecturers were more likely than professors, associate professors, and assistant professors to have taught at least one undergraduate class in fall 2003 and to have taught only undergraduate classes.

Reflecting the broader mission of doctoral institutions, instructional faculty and staff at these institutions were less likely than those at master’s or bachelor’s institutions to have taught any undergraduate classes and to have taught such classes exclusively. Two-thirds of instructional faculty and staff at doctoral institutions taught at least one undergraduate class, and 46 percent taught them exclusively in fall 2003. In contrast, 90 percent of instructional faculty and staff at master’s institutions, which educate graduate students but tend to be less focused on faculty research than doctoral institutions, taught any undergraduate classes in fall 2003, and 71 percent taught these classes exclusively. At bachelor’s institutions, which focus on undergraduate education, 97 percent of instructional faculty and staff taught at least one undergraduate class, and 92 percent did so exclusively.

The likelihood of teaching undergraduates was also related to tenure status. At doctoral and master’s institutions, instructional faculty and staff who were tenured or on the tenure track were less likely than nontenure-track faculty to teach undergraduates exclusively (see table 46-1).

¹Although the sample of institutions was not strictly comparable, the corresponding percentages in fall 1998 were 79 and 58 percent. (back to text)