The higher education commission is charged with compiling statistics relating to the 16 community and 13 public, four-year institutions of higher learning. The agency recently released its Data Book 2015, that includes the latest breakdown of the numbers of full-and part-time professors.
The larger concentration of part-time faculty characterizes the community colleges with about 70 percent, or 5,989 of the 8,562 total statewide, shown on the table as part time. Since their founding period a half-century or so ago, community college officials have generally considered it a positive approach to hire and use part-time faculty.
The conventional wisdom is part-timers can be hired for less money and generally do not receive benefits, which eliminates health and retirement entitlements ordinarily awarded to regular professors. Also, part-time employees can draw on their other work experience. A downside indicated is that they too often do not spend much time on campus, making them less accessible to students.
The highest percentage of part-time faculty in the 2015 book is at the University of Maryland University College, at 91.8 percent. It is the state'’s largest facility, with 48,183 students attending for credit. It primarily enrolls part-time students taking courses online, both in and out of state, plus overseas, which leads to more reliance on the lower-paid part time professors.
Morgan State University is on the other end of the scale, with 16.3 percent (72) of its 443 faculty members overall listed as part time. Salisbury University, on the Eastern Shore, has a 38.1 percent rate among 661 faculty. For the University of Maryland Eastern Shore, it is 41.1 percent of 365.
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