• Despite the relatively small number of tenure-line positions advertised with scholarly societies in most of the disciplines (the exception being communication), the 2017–18 survey reveals little change in the average number of faculty per department (Figure 2A). Only linguistics and the combined departments (language and literature departments that grant degrees in both English and LLE) had statistically significant changes from 2012 to 2017 in the average number of faculty per department. Linguistics showed an increase, while the combined departments had a decrease.
• English departments had the largest average number of faculty (full- and part-time) in the humanities (an estimated 23 faculty members per department), while communication, history, and LLE and had an estimated average of from 15 to 17 faculty members. Folklore departments had the smallest number of faculty (4.1), on average.
• In most of the humanities disciplines, the estimated average number of faculty per department was modestly higher than the median for each discipline, which indicates that a small number of unusually large departments skewed the averages upward. English departments are unusual in that the average (23) was substantially lower than the median (28), indicating that a handful of very small departments pulled down the average for that discipline.
• A common perception is that tenure-track faculty lines are being displaced by nontenured and part-time adjunct positions.3 In the repeat disciplines, the HDS found no statistically significant increases from 2012 to 2017 in the share of faculty employed off the tenure track (see Table 2 in the Appendix). An estimated 62% of all humanities faculty members were tenured or on the tenure track in 2017 (Figure 2B). The two disciplines with the smallest estimated share of faculty in tenure-line positions were communication, with 45% of faculty members in tenured or tenure-track positions, and LLE, with 51%. In most humanities disciplines, the share of faculty either tenured or on the tenure track was greater than 70%.
• An estimated 77% of the faculty in humanities departments were employed in a full-time capacity (Figure 2C). Communication departments had the smallest share of full-time faculty (64%), but in most of the humanities disciplines, between 70% and 85% of the faculty were full-time. Among the repeat disciplines, only English experienced a change in the distribution of faculty between full- and part-time status, with a statistically significant increase in the share of faculty who were full-time (and a corresponding decrease in the share working part-time).
• Substantial variation in the representation of women persisted among the disciplines of the humanities (Figure 2D).1  The HDS estimates that slightly more than half of the faculty members in all surveyed disciplines combined were women, while only 27% of the faculty in philosophy departments were women. In contrast, women constituted 89% of the faculty members in women/gender studies programs, and 64% of faculty in art history. In the repeat disciplines, the survey found no statistically significant change in the representation of women from 2012 to 2017.
• In most of the disciplines (and especially those in which women are comparatively underrepresented), the share of women among tenure-track faculty was substantially larger than the share among tenured faculty (Figure 2E). In philosophy, for instance, women constituted 48% of the tenure-track faculty but only 25% of the faculty members with tenure.
• In most humanities disciplines, the estimated share of faculty in nontenured or non-tenure-track positions who were women was smaller than the share of tenure-track positions filled by women. The exceptions were the combined English/LLE departments (in which 75% of the faculty in nontenurable positions were women, compared to 38% of the faculty on the tenure track), linguistics (70% and 48%), LLE (70% and 57%), and classical studies (54% and 48%).
• English departments had the greatest estimated number of annual faculty departures, an average of 750 per year in academic years 2015–16 and 2016–17, but an equal number of faculty members were hired to fill permanent positions for the 2017–18 academic year (Figure 2F). LLE had the second largest number of departures (625), but also had the largest number of new faculty hires (800). Only in philosophy departments was the number of departing faculty substantially larger than the number of faculty hired.
• An estimated 58% of English departments had at least one faculty member come up for tenure in academic years 2015–16 and 2016–17, while at departments of anthropology, history, and communication, the shares were just below 50% (Figure 2G). These disciplines had the largest shares, while history of science, philosophy, and folklore had the smallest shares of departments with tenure activity: 27%, 27%, and 20% respectively. Disciplines with a small average faculty size generally had smaller shares, though in LLE departments, which have one of the larger average faculty sizes, only 36% had at least one faculty member come up for tenure.
• Most humanities faculty members who came up for tenure received it, according to the survey, but a nonnegligible number of junior faculty appeared to leave prior to facing a tenure decision (Figure 2H). Across all humanities disciplines, an estimated 920 faculty members received tenure per academic year (averaged over 2015–16 and 2016–17), which was more than eleven times the average number denied tenure (81). However, the study also indicates that 219 faculty members left their departments prior to a tenure decision. (For HDS findings regarding the criteria used for tenure, see “Other Department Policies and Practices,” below.)
• Among the repeat disciplines, only history had a statistically significant decline from HDS 2 to HDS 3 in both the amount of tenure activity and the average number of faculty receiving tenure.

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Endnotes

• 3See for instance Maximillian Alvarez and Len Gutkin, “Hanging Out—and Hanging On—at the MLA,” Chronicle of Higher Education (January 22, 2020), https://www.chronicle.com/interactives/hanging-on-at-the-mla; Daniel Bessner and Michael Brenes, “A Moral Stain on the Profession,” Chronicle of Higher Education (April 26, 2019), https://www.chronicle.com/article/A-Moral-Stain-on-the/246197; and Kevin Carey, “The Bleak Job Landscape of Adjunctopia for Ph.D.s,” The New York Times (3/6/2020), https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/05/upshot/academic-job-crisis-phd.html.
• 1Since the assignment of gender in this survey relies on a third party (a department chair or administrator), and the categories for non-binary genders vary from campus to campus, this survey only asked about the share of women.