In the past few decades, especially since the 2008-09 economic downturn, the faculty of American colleges and universities has undergone a far-reaching transformation. Multiple factors, mainly extraneous to the campus itself, are reshaping higher education, and as a result a reprioritizing of the internal allocation of resources is occurring. The faculty--as a corporate body--is increasingly bearing the brunt of these adjustments. The authors have explored the precise contours of that transformation--and the risks it poses for our higher education enterprise--in their new book, "The Faculty Factor" (Finkelstein., Conley, & Schuster, 2016a). The authors believe that the faculty remains at the indispensable center of what higher education seeks to do. At the same time, there needs to be a reassessment of what has become of the faculty. This article describes the series of powerful changes that have occurred--and are still occurring--that are reshaping the faculty and its role at this volatile time.