JOB SATISFACTION OF AMERICAN PART-TIME COLLEGE FACULTY: RESULTS FROM A NATIONAL STUDY A DECADE LATER

Earlier research published in this journal examined factors associated with various forms of job satisfaction among part-time faculty, both at four-year institutions and community colleges. This research forwarded conclusions at odds with popular accounts regarding part-time faculty. Specifically, it was demonstrated that part-time faculty were satisfied with their roles, were pursuing the careers they had planned for, had reached a degree of satisfaction with their decisions to pursue part-time roles, agreed they would repeat their decision to pursue part-time roles, and indicated a stronger commitment to their institutions than their full-time faculty counterparts. These findings, based upon responses to the 1992-1993 National Survey of Postsecondary Faculty (NSOPF), could be argued to be artifacts of the sample of faculty responding to the 1993 survey. Since then, NSOPF has published data from its 2004 survey. This paper reexamines the findings of the original research, testing the extent to which those findings continue to be observed a decade later. It also disaggregates the part-time faculty group to examine differences between voluntary and involuntary part-timers.