1999 comments: The number of members declined in this category, from 37 to 30. This is a loss of the gains made last year. However, the total population rose from 538 to 654 (22%).

Glancing over the data for part-time faculty for 1998 and 1999, it appears that schools that hire part-time faculty simply hired more of them. This is not a case of a school or two suddenly reporting their part-time faculty data for this year. Rather, there were a number of schools who didn't report such personnel this year that did so last year.

1998 comments: The percent of part-time faculty that are members of ALISE has ranged from a high of 12% in 1992 to 7% of its population in 1998. Membership however this year increased from 28 to 37 members (32%). The population, however, declined from 563 in 1997 to 538 in 1998 (4%).

This category includes adjunct faculty, and in a time of declining budgets, it appears that people are not being hired in this category as frequently as they have in past years, particularly the past year of 1997, which represents their highest number of nearly 600.