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Number of Physics and Astronomy Faculty

by Rachel Ivie, Arnell Ephraim

Highlights

• Data for these graphs were collected from a survey sent to all physics and astronomy degree-granting departments in the US in 2006. The response rate to the survey was 96%. AIP thanks all the departments for completing the survey.
• Between 1996 and 2006, departments that offer bachelors as their highest physics degree increased their number of FTE faculty positions from 2600 to 2900. Departments that offer PhDs in physics now have an estimated 5400 FTE faculty positions, up from 5000 in 1996 (Table 1).
• Departments that offer physics master's degrees have an estimated 850 FTE faculty positions, which is unchanged since 1996. However, there are now 14 fewer departments that offer master's degrees as their highest physics degree. Consequently, the average number of FTE faculty positions in master's departments increased from 11 in 1996 to 13 in 2006 (Table 1).
• In 2006, there were 510 departments that granted only bachelor's degrees in physics. Most of these departments are small in terms of number of faculty. In fact, the median number of FTE faculty positions at bachelors-only departments is four. Physics departments that grant PhDs tend to have many more faculty members, with a median number of 26 FTE faculty positions per department (Table 2).
• After several years of increases, the percentage of temporary and non-tenure-track FTE physics faculty positions has leveled off. Overall, 18% of FTE physics faculty members are temporary or non-tenure-track (Table 3).
• More than one-third of PhD physics departments awarded 40 or more bachelor's degrees during the three year period 2003-2005. Most of these departments have very large numbers of FTE faculty, usually more than 30 (Table 4).
• Compared to physics PhD departments, bachelor's departments tend to have smaller faculties and award fewer bachelor's degrees annually. However, they are very efficient at doing so. For example, there are 136 bachelor-only departments that awarded 16 or more bachelor's degrees during the 2003-2005 academic year. Of these, more than 80% have nine or fewer FTE faculty positions (Table 5).
In comparison, there were 60 PhD-granting departments that awarded 19 or fewer bachelor's degrees during this period, and most of them had more than 15 FTE faculty positions (Table 4).
• There are a total of 38 stand-alone astronomy departments, compared to 764 physics departments (some of which are combined with astronomy). In 2006, the stand-alone astronomy departments had approximately 580 FTE faculty members. Most astronomers and astrophysicists in academia are employed by physics departments. Physics departments reported that they employed 1020 faculty members who specialized in astronomy or astrophysics for their dissertation research. That is almost double the number employed by astronomy departments (Table 6).