Last month, ADEA released two new reports on the 2022-23
full- and part-time U.S. dental school faculty vacant and lost positions. The
interactive reports compare the 2022-23 results with 2018-19 data, the latest
year available and a good marker for the period before the outbreak of the
COVID-19 pandemic. The sources of this analysis are the 2018-19 ADEA Survey of
Dental School Faculty and 2022-23 ADEA Dental School Faculty Salary and
Demographic Census.
The interactive reports may be accessed at adea.org/data/faculty/2023-Vacancies
and adea.org/data/faculty/2023-Lost-Positions.
Some of the key points include (see the interactive charts
and download the data at the links above):
- The number of faculty
openings continued to rise in 2022-23. There is no respite in sight for U.S. dental schools
in filling open faculty positions. In 2022-23, 645 positions were open, a 68%
increase from before the COVID-19 pandemic. The overwhelming majority were
full-time positions. About a fifth of the open positions were newly created,
mostly full-time assistant professor jobs. Reporting U.S. dental schools saw a
nine-fold surge in the number of open faculty positions for disciplines such as
GPR/AEGD/Hospital Dentistry from the 2018-19 levels.
- The open U.S. dental
school faculty positions were staying vacant for longer. Dental schools
reported the lack of response to the position announcement as the top challenge
in filling the faculty openings in 2022-23. This is a major change from
2018-19, when the candidates’ ability to meet the dental school
expectations/requirements for the position was the most cited issue affecting
the schools’ ability to fill out the faculty vacancy. The schools were
reporting an intensification in their recruiting efforts, especially for
full-time positions. Nonetheless, the number of open faculty positions staying
vacant for more than 12 months surged by almost three times from the 2018-19
levels.
- The teaching
responsibilities of open and lost faculty positions were often redistributed to
existing faculty.
U.S. dental schools were still losing budgeted faculty positions at a higher
rate than in 2018-19, but at a fraction of the 2020-21 peak. Close to half of
the lost faculty positions were full-time, assistant professorships in a
variety of disciplines. For about 60% of open and lost faculty positions,
dental schools redistributed the teaching loads. This is a significant surge
from 2018-19, when this method was employed for 39% of lost positions and 48%
of open positions.
Some notes about the responding schools: Fifty-three
schools (75%) of the 71 U.S. accredited dental schools provided information on
open faculty positions and 56 schools (79%) reported data on lost faculty
positions, the source of this analysis. The response rate was similar with the
2018-19 data collection for open faculty positions (74%), but higher than the
2018-19 rate for lost positions (27%). For more details, see the Methodological
Appendices in each of the reports.
For more information, please contact ADEA Office of
Educational Services research team at adeadata@adea.org.
Published on July 10, 2024