Tenured and tenure-track status for regular faculty dropped to a new low from 2023 to 2024, according to the annual core indicators report presented at the Faculty Senate meeting Friday.

Provost Chris Bracey presented data at the meeting that showed a drop in tenure status for regular faculty from 71.5 percent in fall 2023 to 70.7 percent in fall 2024. Faculty tenure and tenure-track status fell short of meeting a Faculty Code clause that requires 75 percent of regular faculty to be tenured or tenure-track for the sixth consecutive year, according to the annual core indicators report.

Regular faculty are full-time faculty with the title of University professor, professor, associate professor, assistant professor and instructor who are tenured or tenure-track, according to the University Faculty Code. They are also nontenure-track full-time faculty members who are on a renewable contract, do not hold a regular or tenured appointment at another University and have a nine or 12-month appointment.

“While our overall faculty numbers have remained more or less flat post-pandemic, it appears that our tenure stream faculty percentages have been decreasing,” Bracey said at the meeting.

The University Faculty Code clause states that schools should not have more than 25 percent of their regular faculty nontenured or nontenure track and that at least half of faculty in all departments should be on a tenure-track. The requirement does not apply to the School of Medicine & Health Sciences, the School of Nursing, Milken Institute of Public Health and the College of Professional Studies, according to the clause.

The last time the percentage of regular faculty who were tenured or on a tenure-track exceeded 75 percent was in fall 2018, with 75.2 percent of regular faculty being tenured or on a tenure-track.

Philip Wirtz, a faculty senator and professor of decision sciences and psychological and brain sciences said when he joined the University 28 years ago, full-time faculty were considered regular faculty and were obligated to teaching, research and service. He said with the addition of specialized faculty, who are not obligated for research or service, the University may continue to replace regular faculty with specialized faculty until there are no tenure or tenure-track faculty.

“What you’re seeing is a steady, monotonic decrease in the number of tenure and tenure-track faculty and in my opinion that’s a very bad trend and could in fact continue down to zero,” Wirtz said.

Wirtz said departments are not given a choice to replace a regular faculty member with another regular faculty member when faculty leave the University but are asked to decide whether they want a specialized faculty member to take the spot.

“We’re being told, ‘No, you may not replace your tenure or tenure-track faculty with another 10 year tenure or track faculty, but you may, if you want, replace it with a specialized faculty member,’” Wirtz said.

Bracey said the number of tenure or tenure-track faculty is linked to student enrollment and that schools with “strong” enrollment can support additional tenure or tenure-track faculty. He said it is financially “prudent” for the administration not to “over invest” in schools with weaker enrollment.

“They may not be going to your department, but they’re going somewhere into the University,” Bracey said.

The University enrolled 1,356 international students in fall 2024, dropping from 1,593 in fall 2023, according to the report. Bracey said increasing the University’s international student population is difficult because of “lingering” travel and visa restrictions.

The decline in international students in fall 2024 is the first plunge post-pandemic after a drop of 844 students from fall 2019 to fall 2020, according to the report.

“As we shared previously, students from China represent the majority of the decline in our international student population, and although we hope to regain much of this student population in the future, it’s still difficult,” Bracey said.

Bracey said the total number of international graduate students has recovered to pre-pandemic levels through “de-mystifying” international student markets and attracting students from around the world.

Graduate, law and medical international student enrollment fell below pre-pandemic fall 2019 levels, while nondegree and nonresidential undergraduate students broke fall 2019 enrollment, according to the report.

Graduate international student enrollment fell from 1,029 in fall 2019 to 938 in fall 2024, while medical and law international student enrollment dropped from 50 in fall 2019 to 11 in fall 2024. Nondegree and nonresidential undergraduate students rose from 10 in fall 2019 to 65 in fall 2024, according to the report.

International graduate student enrollment fell from 1,138 in fall 2023 to 938 in fall 2024 while international medical and law student enrollment dropped from 80 in fall 2023 to 11 in fall 2024, according to the report. International residential undergraduate student enrollment was less than half of what it was in fall 2019, falling from 408 in fall 2019 to 139 in fall 2024.

The University’s top five countries with international student enrollment in fall 2024 were India, China, South Korea, Saudi Arabia and Azerbaijan, according to the report.