This report examines the changes, and the potential consequences of those changes, in the employment patterns of American academics, focusing specifically on the use of short-term and temporary instructors by postsecondary institutions. Following a brief introduction, the report describes shifts in hiring patterns of postsecondary institutions,…

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the graying of America's college and university faculty coincided with new federal regulations that prohibited mandatory retirement. So in order to both encourage faculty retirements and assume better control of when positions would be vacated about half of all U.S. colleges and universities adopted various…