Part-time faculty members represent the majority of faculty at public two-year postsecondary institutions. Utilizing part-time faculty enables two-year institutions to control their instructional costs and maintain scheduling flexibility. However, part-time faculty are diverse in regards to their employment preference, some prefer part-time employment while others would prefer a full-time position. Since retaining and attracting qualified and experienced part-time faculty members is essential, it is imperative that their satisfaction be understood.

This study uses the 2004 National Study of Postsecondary Faculty (NSOPF: 04) to study faculty satisfaction. Faculty was disaggregated according to employment preference into full-time, involuntary part-time, and voluntary part-time in order to study the structure of satisfaction for each group and the factors that influence the satisfaction for each group. The factors studied were perception of equity, partial inclusion, demographic differences and academic discipline. I found that the structure of faculty satisfaction and the influence of variables on faculty satisfaction differ among full-time, involuntary part-time, and voluntary part-time faculty.