Volume 66, No. 1

Introduction

Employment research is a ubiquitous feature in contemporary policy, economic, and business sectors. The higher education sector in the United States has tracked employment data for many decades, aided by organizations such as the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) and governmental groups such as the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) (American Association of University Professors 2024a). Beyond large scale measurements, however, individual disciplines within higher education collect data differently, leading to inconsistencies between academic fields (Colby 2023; Mandernach, Barclay, Husling, & Jackson 2015). Such data have a wide range of uses in both industry and policy, but the employment metrics in higher education most often correlate to “high value” industries with large numbers of job openings in STEM, medical, and legal fields (e.g., Deitz and Henke 2023). A more recent focus on creative economies and higher education institutions as anchor institutions for arts ecosystems provides greater impetus for research on the employment status of higher education faculty in the arts (Ashley and Durham 2021; Comunian 2019; Comunian & Gilmore, 2016; Crow and Dabars 2020). This study focuses on a quintessentially American art form that, while representing a relatively small portion of the creative ecosystem, is well-represented in U.S. colleges and universities: jazz.

Our research centers on the theoretical concept that universities serve as anchor institutions (e.g., Ashley and Durham 2021), both in the industry and the music community, as critical jazz employers (Hertzog 2023; Wilf, 2020). Despite ample anecdotal information from those employed, the nature of this jazz employment—full-time or part-time, faculty or staff positions, demographics, etc.—is conspicuously underrepresented in the current literature. We view this measurement as critical to a better understanding of jazz in the academy and potentially the entire discipline of music. Furthermore, granular data in this study also represent a replicable format to deepen the data on arts faculty in higher education and how employment metrics contribute to the anchor institution narrative.

Jazz musicians work as employees within higher education in a variety of roles such as teachers, artists, and administrators, but the specific nature of this work is not known. The purpose of this study was to gain insight on how higher education contributes to sustaining the jazz art form as an employer of jazz musicians. Most importantly, in the larger narrative surrounding neoliberal trends in higher education faculty nationally—undervaluing the humanities (Al-Gharbi 2020), imbalance and inequity of labor (Colby 2023), and administrative bloat (Ginsberg 2011)—we posit that universities serve as anchor institutions for jazz faculty even though they may still fall short of employing these artists to their fullest. Therefore, this study sought to examine the current state of employment in jazz across institutions in the United States. The following research questions were used to guide the study:

1. Which employment types are common among jazz educators?
2. What types of work do jazz faculty perform in higher education?
3. Are jazz faculty satisfied with their employment in higher education?
4. What are the demographics of jazz faculty?

This study utilized definitions from the American Association of University Professors (Colby 2023) and includes six types of employment: adjunct or part-time; full-time, non-tenure-track (i.e., contingent); tenure-track (probationary); and tenured (with continuous tenure) (Colby 2023). For the purposes of this study, a member of a jazz faculty is any musician with expertise in jazz or related genres (e.g., Latin music), employed as faculty at a post-secondary music institution in any rank, position, or title.

Literature Review

Research on collegiate faculty is prevalent in much of higher education research, with an overwhelming narrative on “decline” dominating the field over the last three decades (Colby 2023; Ginsburg 2011; Nelson, Monson, and Adibifar 2020; Thelin 2011). This decline is directly related to the increasing proportion of higher education faculty working under contracts that are less stable, renumerated, and secure than tenured faculty. These “non-tenure-track jobs tend to provide low wages, few benefits, and little job security with contracts extended or retracted preciously from semester to semester” (Al-Gharbi 2020, 21). Concern over the ramifications of this trend in employment was stated strongly in 2016 by the American Association of University Professors: “The casualization of faculty labor is reflected in the unbundling of the traditional faculty role…[contingent] positions may or may not also include research, professional development, and service.”

Recent data collected through fall 2021 from NCES list significant changes in the makeup of employment types over the last 35 years. Full-time tenured faculty currently make up only 24% of faculty in the U.S., down from 39% in 1985. The part-time faculty percentage has risen from a third (33%) to nearly half (48%) of all faculty in the same period. Tenure-track faculty made up merely 9% in 2021 and the percentage of full-time faculty off a tenure-track has increased from 5% in 1985 to 13% in 2021 (Colby 2023). This background information highlights a systematic, decades-long move toward less stable employment that is well researched and documented across higher education literature (e.g., Nelson, Monson, and Adibifar 2020).

In The Fall of the Faculty, Benjamin Ginsberg illustrates that the decline in employment conditions for such a large percentage of the faculty was not always the case: “As recently as the 1960s and 1970s, America’s universities were heavily influenced…by faculty ideas and concerns. Today, institutions of higher education are mainly controlled by administrators” (Ginsberg 2011, 1). The move toward administrative control and less secure labor tracked the rise of corporate management strategies in the academy and neoliberal politics along with, in many cases, shrinking public appropriations and rapid enrollment growth (Ginsberg 2011; Thelin 2011). Thelin describes how during the interwar period “with few exceptions, university and college presidents held the crucial cards in the game of faculty hiring, promotion, and firing” (Thelin 2011, 257). The emergence during this era of the “departmental chair” became an important structural innovation in favor of more discipline-oriented and local control of faculty; although Thelin (2011) also writes that this position was often “determined more by immediate campus politics than by national scholarly reputation” (257). Other scholars such as Al-Gharbi (2020) illustrate the problem of over-supply of PhDs across many disciplines has led to an impossibly tight labor market for higher education faculty. Shifts in economic philosophy have also radically altered the landscape of higher education faculty in recent decades. Newfield (2023) explains that with the rise of neoliberal economics, administrators accepted that “higher education was like any other product marketed in a competitive economy: it would be most efficiently produced and delivered by private-sector method and paid for as a private good” (81). Despite the complexity of many micro and macro level forces at work, scholars generally agree that the confluence of neoliberalism, enrollment growth, over-supply, and administrative expansion has led to an often-dire situation for new PhDs, and faculty outside of tenured or tenure-track positions (Al-Gharbi 2020; Bok 2013; Newfield 2021). Despite the strong documentation of professional “decline” in higher education employment, not all research focuses on negative effects. Results of Nelson, Monson, and Adibifar’s (2020) satisfaction study of adjunct faculty found that adjuncts exhibited similar levels of job satisfaction to those in tenure-track or tenured positions.

Research on the employment status of faculty in specific higher education disciplines is sporadic. Bolger and Smith (2006) sought to correlate the faculty status of librarians at liberal arts colleges with various metrics of institutional success, and their survey is similar in philosophy to the instrument utilized in this study. Faculty satisfaction across gender and discipline were studied by Sabharwal and Corley (2009), and while some disciplines such as engineering and social sciences exhibited similar levels of job satisfaction, others had significant satisfaction differences by gender such as hard sciences and health. Relevant to this paper, the arts disciplines were not included in the Sabharwal and Corley study. Other work narrows the focus to part-time or adjunct faculty to assess the effects on various other educational outcomes. For example, Hutto found that “exposure to adjunct faculty instruction positively impacted course retention—at least in the short-term” (Hutto 2017, 14). Jacoby’s 2006 study found that “increases in the ratio of part-time faculty at community colleges have a highly significant and negative impact upon graduation rates” (Jacoby 2006, 1092). This finding has major implications for individual disciplines with a high reliance on part-time faculty. Contrary to common assumptions about the nature of part-time faculty work, Maynard and Joseph’s (2008) study found that part-time faculty, even those desiring a full-time position, exhibited similar levels of job satisfaction to full-time faculty. Comparisons between full-time and part-time faculty have not been limited to in-person instruction. Mandernach et al.’s (2015) work investigated faculty engagement across varying employment types in both face-to-face and online contexts, finding that part-time online faculty exhibited the lowest levels of engagement when compared to other faculty employment types.

Music, as a discipline, shares many attributes with all areas of higher education, however, the nature of employment in music differs widely from other professions (Miller, Dumford, and Johnson 2017). Many musicians employed in higher education may have active performance careers or work in other areas of the music industry for their main source of income (e.g., film scoring, music production, etc.). Therefore, while higher education literature often paints a bleak portrait of employment conditions in the sector, musicians’ employment may be far more complex (Miller 1993). While part-time music faculty may be heavily engaged with the music industry, institutions are clearly considering increasing their part-time music faculty as a strategy for success: Hertzog’s (2021) study found that 65.6% of music departments had increased their numbers of part-time faculty over the previous five-year period.

The National Association of Schools of Music (NASM) collects annual research on music faculty including field-wide statistics on tenure status for accredited institutions. Data from 2020 illustrate a difference between public institutions (58% tenured, 42% non-tenured) and private institutions (44% tenured, 56% non-tenured). Among all accredited institutions, the proportions (54% tenured, 46% non-tenured) differ significantly from national proportions of faculty (e.g., Colby 2023), though there may be hidden differences in how specific ranks are counted in the collections. While NASM institutions are collecting data on faculty, no data are available at the discipline-specific level (e.g., music education or performance). In 1993, Molly Weaver conducted a survey of tenure-track music faculty at Big Ten conference universities to assess the distribution of tenure track appointments across gender groups. This survey indicated at the time some significant underrepresentation in the higher professorial ranks of faculty who identify as women (Weaver, 1994). Details of the employment of music faculty, particularly those of the promotion and tenure process, have recently been studied by Abeles and Doyle (2018). Their survey of College Music Society members’ processes for promotion and tenure concluded that while music is a unique discipline, policies and expectations in music units were like those in other disciplines across different institutional types, with expected variation in weighting of teaching, research, and service. While these researchers examined different sub disciplines within music (e.g., musicology or performance), “jazz studies” was not considered a category in that study (Abeles and Doyle 2018). Our study seeks to add jazz studies as an important discipline in need of inclusion in such measurements.

The music industry has recently considered employment from the perspective of equity and addressing systemic discrimination. “Women in the Mix,” a study sponsored by the Berklee College of Music, represents important research that could form the bedrock of improving employment equity for workers identifying as women in corporate or freelance settings (Prior, Barra, and Kramer 2019). A related study (Pellegrinelli 2025) demonstrated significant underrepresentation of faculty who identify as women across almost all areas of collegiate jazz education. Within the context of previous literature both from higher education and the music industry, there is no existent research on employment of jazz musicians in higher education. A recent study by Hertzog and Hunter (2024) demonstrated the need to assess the state of jazz musicians’ employment while also highlighting the need to better understand how collegiate jazz programs are collectively working as economic anchor institutions for music ecosystems (i.e., Ashley and Durham 2021). Furthermore, because music industry economics concentrates touring and recorded music revenue in a very small percentage of recording artists, teaching music is often considered a critical component of a jazz musician’s livelihood (Bartlett and Tolmie 2018; Krueger 2019; Wilf 2020). Therefore, a major significance of this study is to better understand the nature of employment for jazz musicians in the higher education sector that may be a critical component of the jazz industry

Methodology

Surveys are ubiquitous in research on higher education faculty, and the constructs in this study, employment status and satisfaction, have been addressed extensively in previous literature (e.g., AAUP 2024b; Ginsburg 2011; Maynard and Joseph 2008). Despite the prevalence of research on faculty employment and recent studies on music faculty (e.g., Gee and Koner 2025; Wristen 2023), no prior studies have narrowed these questions to a single discipline such as jazz. We created a cross-sectional survey guided by our research questions (Crocker and Algina 1986). The intended population of respondents encompassed practicing jazz musicians or scholars who were employed by any institution of higher education, in any role teaching jazz during the time of the survey.

The survey included 27 total items, 22 of which were multiple-choice items related to the respondent’s employment. Likert-scale data were used to gauge job satisfaction. Three additional multiple-choice items examined demographics. A pilot test with five respondents (four faculty and one administrator) was conducted to assess clarity and appropriate response categories for each item. Validity was accomplished through the face validity of each item and the common knowledge nature of many of the survey questions (e.g., income). Due to the fact that institutions may have widely differing titles, ranks, and contractual obligations for full-time faculty versus part-time faculty, branching logic was used to provide respondents with appropriate questions based on their initial response to the question “which best describes your employment in higher education,” to which respondents could select “part-time at one institution,” “part-time at multiple institutions,” or “full-time at one institution.” Two items were specific to part-time faculty, and three items were specific to full-time faculty. Two items were specific to the subject of tenure for full-time faculty.

The survey was distributed in two batches. First, the survey was published by the Jazz Education Network (JEN) in multiple research newsletters to their extensive mailing list of educators over a four-week period. This solicitation generated 44 total responses. For the second batch distribution, a database of jazz faculty email addresses was created using the institutional directories from the College Music Society. These directories are available to members and provide a list of institutions that employ faculty with specializations in jazz. To cross reference this directory, each institution’s website was examined to produce a list of 3,033 jazz faculty across the United States working in higher education. The survey was distributed via the compiled list over a five-week period. In total, the survey received 393 valid responses, 370 of which were complete, for a response rate of 13%. Thirty of the valid responses were generated by distribution through the JEN and 363 were generated through direct emailing.

Results

Our four guiding questions were used to create the survey instrument and examine the current state of employment in jazz across institutions. These questions are used to outline our results.

Which employment statuses are common among jazz educators?

The sample in this study was predominantly employed full-time (68.7%), with nearly one-fifth reporting adjunct employment (18.6%) and 8.9% reporting half-time or part-time employment. Only 3.8% of respondents reported employment in a combination of positions. Of those who were not full-time employees (n = 118), only about one-third indicated they were “on the market” for a full-time position (38.1%). Most jazz faculty were employed at an institution that utilizes a tenure system (86.1%, n = 388), and of full-time faculty at those institutions, 40.7% (n = 221) are currently tenured, 37.1% reported being on the tenure-track and just under a quarter (22.2%) were not in a tenure-track position. For the entire sample of complete responses (n = 370), 24.4% were tenured, resembling national averages (Colby 2023), and 46.4% were not on a tenure-track. For full-time employees not in a tenure-track position (n = 49), 38.8% indicated they were currently seeking a tenure-track position.

What types of work do jazz faculty perform in higher education?

The respondents in this study represented highly experienced educators. Almost the entire sample (94%) had taught at a four-year college or university; 28.8% indicated they had taught at a conservatory, and one-third (36.4%) indicated they had taught at a community college. Nearly three-quarters (72%) had worked in higher education for over a decade, with 42.9% of respondents indicating having worked in higher education for 21 years or more. Results for the length of employment are displayed in Table 1.

Table 1. How long have you worked in higher education?

n = 382

Reflecting the proportion of tenured and tenure-track faculty in the sample, 64.4% indicated their job duties specifically required research or creative activity, and 62.1% had access to dedicated institutional funds for research and creative activities (n = 370). The sample also reflected a high proportion of administrators with 63.5% of respondents serving as a jazz program director, 15.3% holding a department chair position, and 16.4% serving in various other types of administrative or coordinator roles (n = 189). Jazz faculty in this study were heavily performance-based, with 89% indicating that their primary background prior to becoming a jazz educator was as a performer or recording artist. However, one-third of respondents indicated their primary background prior to their educational career was as a jazz student (36%), perhaps an indicator of trends to come in the discipline. Only around 10% of jazz faculty indicated research backgrounds. The emphasis on performance was also evident in the job duties of faculty, where 73% indicated they are engaged in one-on-one lessons and 79% indicated ensemble direction as a major job component. Results for primary teaching responsibilities and primary professional background are displayed in Table 2. Both questions allowed multiple responses.

Table 2. Primary teaching responsibilities and primary professional background.

n = 372

While jazz is performed around the world on almost any conceivable instrument, respondents in this study were heavily clustered as either woodwind players (26.5%) or brass players (25.7%). Results for primary instruments are displayed in Table 3.

Table 3. Please indicate your primary instrument type.

n = 370

The sample also included a robust proportion of doctorate holders (40.8%), and about one-third (35.7%) of respondents indicated their highest academic degree was a Master of Music degree. Results for highest academic degree are displayed in Table 4.

Table 4. Please indicate your highest academic degree.

n = 370

The survey respondents in this study clustered around two different income levels from their work in higher education. Reflecting the large proportion of tenured faculty, especially those who hold administrative roles, over a quarter of respondents made more than $100,000 per year (27.3%). A second cluster of respondents (30.9%) reported earning between $50,000 and $80,000 per year. Another quarter of respondents (28.9%) indicated earning under $50,000 from their work in higher education. Full results for higher education income are displayed in Table 5.

Table 5. Please indicate the approximate level of income you receive annually from your employment in higher education only.

n = 370

Unionization of some kind was reported by around one-third of survey respondents. Thirty-five percent of jazz faculty reported membership in a musicians’ union, and an almost identical portion (37.8%) reported membership in a higher education faculty union. However, only 17.6% of respondents indicated they were required to join a faculty union in their higher education work (n = 370).

Are jazz faculty satisfied with their employment in higher education?

Responses to the two Likert-type questions in the survey on satisfaction were found to be reliable (a = .84). Jazz faculty in this study rated their satisfaction with their employment status high, with a mean of 5.34 and a mode of 6 (n = 370; SD = 1.43). Satisfaction with respondents’ working conditions was similarly high with a mean of 5.17 and a mode of 6 (n = 370; s = 1.47).

What are the demographics of jazz faculty?

The demographic results for this study’s sample create a homogenous profile. The sample was predominantly male (79.5%) with only 13.8% identifying as women. Only 5.7% chose not to disclose their gender and 1.1% identified as genderfluid. Results for ethnicity were similarly distributed: Three-quarters of the sample identified as white (76%) and the next largest group in the sample identified as Black (10%). Full results for ethnicity are displayed in Table 6. This was a multiple response question.

Table 6. Race and Ethnic Makeup of survey respondents.

n = 372

The sample in this study was also composed of older faculty: Well over half of the sample was over 50 years old (59.2%) and almost one-third (33%) was over 60 years old. Younger faculty were more sparsely represented. Full results for respondents’ age range are displayed in Table 7.

Table 7. Age range of respondents.

Discussion

A Profile of Jazz Faculty

The portrait of jazz faculty painted by these data suggest that the most typical jazz professor is a white, male, tenured professor working full-time at a four-year college or university and earning a salary greater than $50,000 per year from higher education work. This professor is most likely a brass, woodwind, or keyboard player with a background in performance and their job is heavily performance-based, either in applied instrument lessons or ensemble direction. Based upon the most common responses to age and length of employment in our study, the typical jazz professor entered the higher education workforce prior to 2012, and more likely has been working in higher education since the 1990s. Depending on their age, the typical jazz faculty holds at least a master’s degree but is slightly more likely to hold a doctorate. This typical jazz professor is generally quite satisfied with their job and working conditions and is also likely to hold an administrative role such as a jazz program director.

A second, less represented but important profile also emerges from these data. This typical jazz professor is younger, has worked in higher education for less than ten years, and is either part-time or adjunct in at least one institution. Although they likely earn less than $50,000 per year from their employment in higher education (under $30,000 is more likely), they do not consider themselves “on the market” for full-time positions. Like the first profile, they are likely to be white, male, have backgrounds in performance, and teach performance-based courses (e.g., ensemble). Interestingly, while our data did show a small but significant correlation between job satisfaction and full-time status (r = .31; p < .01), adjunct employees still rated their satisfaction above the mid-point of the scale (µ = 4.67), as did part-time employees (µ = 5). This suggests that these musicians are likely to be performers that enjoy an affiliation with an institution but also have highly active artistic careers. We believe that while this study captured these two profiles in the greatest proportion, anecdotally a jazz musician may examine these data and identify a tremendous variety of educator profiles that may match any number of today’s working collegiate jazz educators.

Overall, the most common profile represented in this sample suggests that collegiate jazz education is a fulfilling career for those that entered the profession during the period of booming enrollments and institutional funding across the higher education landscape (Alexander 2020). The data also suggest that all types of educators in many types of employment situations are remarkably satisfied with their work as a whole. This speaks to the great importance of collegiate jazz programs as employers of jazz musicians (Hertzog 2023) and the unique variety of musicians’ career activities (Bartlett and Tolmie 2018).

Context in Higher Education

The most striking attribute of our typical jazz professor in this study is how much resemblance there is to typical professors across all higher education in the United States. This study showed a strikingly high percentage of white faculty (76%) but the Higher Education Arts Data Services [HEADS] (2020) reported 82.6% white faculty in all of music (HEADS 2020), and NCES (2024) lists 72% white faculty across all higher education. Tenure numbers show a similar congruence, with 24.4% of our sample possessing tenure and AAUP (2024) data showing 24.6% tenured faculty in higher education nationally. Data for income suggest that although jazz musicians are paid lower on average than professors in many disciplines, salary ranges match both AAUP data and HEADS data. However, jazz professors in this study were disproportionally male (79.5%) compared with all music faculty (66%) (HEADS 2020) and all higher education faculty (48%) (NCES 2024). When the data is this study are contextualized within national data across disciplines, they suggest that jazz faculty are possibly some of the least diverse faculty in higher education demographically, but well in-line with other national percentages such as tenure status. Several important implications follow these comparisons, and they may illuminate critical aspects of the history and future of jazz in higher education.

The Development of Jazz Faculty

In contrast to other disciplines with a longer history of existence in the academy, the lack of diversity in jazz is both striking and conspicuous. It is potentially tragic that while generations of music’s commercial and cultural impact have been based on the influence, work, and legacies of Black jazz artists (Gioia 2011; Wilf 2020), and it has been nearly 80 years since jazz began to be included in the United States’ universities (Prouty 2005; Wilf 2020), such a small portion of the country’s jazz professoriate is composed of Black musicians and scholars. This may be the result of intrinsic and ubiquitous systemic racism in the academy as described both by scholars within music (e.g., Kajikawa 2019; Wilf 2020) and across higher education writ large (e.g., Wilder 2013). Factors in the development of jazz in higher education also may elucidate some of the faculty employment characteristics measured by this study.

Remarkably, the dramatic expansion of jazz education programs beginning in the 1980s coincides with a massive decline in the commercial popularity of jazz across the music industry (Gioia 2011; Wilf 2020). After the commercial resurgence of jazz in the “fusion” period of the 1970s, a final and stark decline in record sales may have made jazz performing careers more difficult to achieve at the exact same time that the largest generation of jazz musicians arrived at the first peak of their careers (Gioia 2011; Wilf 2020). While notable influential artists such as Wynton Marsalis and Harry Connick Jr. led revivals in the 1980s and 1990s of more traditional ‘acoustic’ jazz (e.g., bebop or big band), the work available to jazz musicians both in live performances and record sales has declined substantially since the mid-20th century (Wilf 2020). Therefore, those musicians who had received graduate training in music (not necessarily in jazz, at that time) found a highly receptive job market for jazz professors in the 1980s and early 1990s, backed up by massive state funding and ballooning enrollments for most institutions in the United States (Thelin 2011). Performers, especially those with fluency in the classical world (more likely to be brass, woodwinds, or piano players) were a natural choice to found or lead jazz programs across the country. Owing to the pre-existing biases across higher music education, those performers were more likely to be white and male, despite jazz being a highly integrated and diverse art form commercially—not to suggest there were not powerful discriminatory currents in the jazz industry as well, but those differed substantially from similar forces in higher education (Kajikawa 2019; Gioia 2011). By the time higher education reached its peak enrollment in the early 2000s, many jazz programs were entrenched within institutions and subject to the forces of saturation, competition, decline in state funding, rising tuition, hiring freezes, and eventual declining enrollment following the great recession (Alexander 2020). The result may now be that we are seeing a stunted development—just at the moment where jazz faculty could have been diversified by more equitable hiring practices in higher education, the resources to do so, and the demand for expansion may not exist. The 2024 study by Hertzog and Hunter of 90 college jazz programs revealed that even in cases where jazz is a strong component of an institution’s identity, it is often not proportionally represented in programming and resource allocation, especially in smaller institutions. Jazz programs may feed the entire music industry with talented musicians, but academically, jazz programs are still a small niche. Investment in small niches is complex when the surrounding conditions are not challenging—and contemporary scholars agree environmental conditions for higher education in the 2020s are absolutely challenging (Alexander 2020; Crow and Debars 2020; Grawe 2018).

The Implications of Generational Shift

Our study suggests that 43% of jazz faculty in our sample were likely to retire in the next decade, potentially meaning that a large-scale generational shift is on the horizon for jazz education. However, many external forces suggest that while the older and more secure generation of jazz musicians has found much success in higher education, the newer generations of artists and scholars may not be as fortunate. This new generation may not be employed in the same capacity as those they replace—if retirees are replaced at all. As Altbach (2016) writes:

the large cohort of academics who entered the profession in the 1960s and 1970s has taken up a disproportionate share of jobs. Although many have been retiring recently, their ranks have often been filled by part-time or full-time contract faculty – thus changing the nature and orientation of the profession. (96)

This is supported by data from NCES (2024b) illustrating the declining percentage of tenured and tenure-track faculty over the last decade and Hertzog’s 2022 work that highlighted the increase in part-time music faculty specifically. New jazz faculty hires are less likely to be tenure-track than in previous generations, and institutions may even be replacing retired tenured faculty with non-tenure-track positions. Since “no major countervailing force resist the adjunctification drive, and the pressures to reduce higher education costs remain intense” (Alexander 2020, 38), administrators may also see the mostly performance-based jazz faculty as financially inefficient (Miller 1993) and replaceable by non-tenure-track lines in various forms, affecting the ability of jazz musicians to balance the stability of an academic career with the need to create music and practice their craft. That the majority of jazz faculty are not unionized is an additional factor that may put positions at risk (Bok 2013). As described by Ginsburg (2011), lack of tenured jazz faculty in the future mean that jazz musicians will move toward the periphery of institutional life; less likely to serve on committees, hold leadership roles, or influence policies and strategic direction.

Grawe’s (2018) startling predictions for the future of higher education in the United States based on changing and (mostly) declining demand for enrollment amplify these trends and may hit jazz programs hard. In contrast to some academic disciplines, it is unlikely that jazz programs will be able to offset a decline in 18–24-year-olds with the older adults, non-traditional learners, and online students that institutions are looking to for financial stability (Alexander 2020; Miller 1993). At West Virginia University, a jazz program was discontinued due to budgetary constraints (West Virginia University 2023). At the time of this writing, significant financial pressures across higher education have led to tremendous uncertainty in the availability of funds for future hiring and research that will likely place new strains on arts and humanities programs (Chronicle of Higher Education, 2025).

The Satisfaction of Jazz Educators

A second major finding from our data is that despite the variety of employment types that were measured, jazz educators are generally satisfied with their work. New and exciting forms of commerce and commodification in the music industry have allowed a new generation of musicians to develop tremendous variety in their revenue streams (Krueger 2019), implying that seeking “stability” via teaching in higher education is not as desirable a path for a large group of musicians today as it may have been in the past. Rather, many seem to be balancing some teaching responsibilities with many other types of freelance employment. Remarkably, our results for job satisfaction did not show a large discrepancy between very different full-time, part time, and tenure/tenure-track status—results that mirror Nelson et al.’s (2020) work. For the next generation of jazz faculty, employment in collegiate jazz education may be just one part of a “portfolio career” (Bartlett and Tolmie 2018) rather than a full-time vocation. This may lead to an increase in diversity as a greater number of musicians hold qualifications for adjunct or non-tenure-track employment (i.e., lack of doctorates), and it may also pave the way for broader stylistic representation in jazz education (see Prouty 2008). However, “devaluing academic labor” (Alexander 2020, 38) in this way decreases the ability of institutions to become permanent anchors of jazz and risks the concentration of jazz programs only within the few cities with a pre-existing high density of jazz musicians that support most of their livelihoods through sources apart from teaching. Additionally, in light of Jacoby’s (2008) research, student success may be negatively impacted by a reliance on part-time jazz faculty. On the other hand, part-time jazz faculty with active music industry careers are well positioned to mentor students and create connections that are difficult for full-time faculty to achieve (Hertzog 2023; Miller 1993; Wilf 2020).

In a study done by Anjou in 2019, freelance jazz musicians in New York City were found to have a median income of $27,800 and 81.8% had suffered from some form of depression. Her work is consistent with multiple other findings on the poor mental health of professional musicians (e.g., Loveday, Musgrave, and Gross 2023). In contrast, the jazz musicians in this study were relatively satisfied and reported higher earnings on average than Anjou’s 2019 study. Perhaps some affiliation with collegiate teaching, even in adjunct or part-time roles, provides both satisfaction and additional income when compared to only freelance work. Despite the possibility of fewer full-time or tenure-track positions in jazz described above, the “gig” academy debated by scholars (Alexander 2020; Nelson et al. 2020) could be well suited to jazz musicians. Thus, our study supports the narrative that while collegiate employment in jazz may be facing significant downward pressures externally, employment matters; its value to jazz musicians and educators is profoundly important in all capacities. Therefore, all those within the jazz community have a strong vested interest in sustaining this employment and reimagining it for a new world of higher education. The impending generational turnover may exacerbate this discrepancy if retiring faculty are not replaced with tenure-track lines—thus eroding the power of jazz faculty within the institution and perhaps their status outside of the academy.

Situational Forecasting

Considered together, the generational turnover and satisfaction results point toward two contrasting forecasts of the future for jazz musicians’ employment in higher education if considered situationally. Our data showed a weak, but significant correlation between satisfaction and tenure status (r = .19; p < .01) while also indicating that at least a third (37%) of those not in a tenure-line position are currently seeking one. This implies that some degree of oversaturation exists in the labor market for full-time, tenure-track positions in jazz. While it may be true that an interpretation of these data align more tightly with the narrative of neoliberal faculty devaluation presented by scholars such as Ginsburg (2011), Newfield (2021), and Nelson et al. (2020), perhaps, unlike other disciplines, this devaluation will not affect all institutions equally.

For example, a large urban institution with a high density of jazz musicians may be able to easily maintain the quality of its jazz program if tenured positions become contingent positions. In fact, it may even be advantageous in some situations when a large and diverse part-time faculty pool attracts many more jazz applicants. These adjunct faculty likely enjoy the creative freedom allowed to contingent faculty not constrained by service duties often remanded to tenure-track positions.

However, consider a tenured jazz professor at a university in a small city with a far less densely concentrated community of jazz performers. Such a professor, if their profile corresponded to what we describe in this study, is likely incentivized to create deeply embedded connections in the jazz community and by nature of their position has a vested interest in recruiting new students, hosting guest artists, and performing locally (Hertzog 2023). This type of position would have taken decades to cultivate through continued valuing of the jazz educator and the community in which it exists. If this position is replaced by an adjunct position, many of those incentives for the new faculty member to embed in the community are likely to disappear. This would make the applicant pool for such a vacancy quite small. These types of positions do not include service or research demands (Bok 2013). Part-time performance-based positions are likely not tied to recruitment efforts for the larger music program, are likely not included in the process of presenting music and are often excluded from the faculty community—all in the name of “protecting” adjunct labor from the typical demands of full-time, and especially tenure-track positions (Miller 1993). With this disconnect of roles, a musician filling this adjunct position has a greater incentive to continue touring or working outside the community and therefore is not inclined to build local connections. If the institution’s jazz program is an “anchor” of the local scene (Ashley and Durham 2021), then the loss of even one tenure-track line could have regional ripple effects in the valuation and presentation of jazz. Without growing enrollments, administrators may need to replace more tenured jazz faculty with contingent faculty, causing a “downward spiral” of employment, undoubtedly without regard to the local music scene. Unless jazz as a field can counteract the many trends causing the “adjunctification” of higher education, scenarios such as the one described may occur frequently as the generational turnover progresses.

Limitations

The most significant limitation in this study was the lack of part-time faculty represented in the sample. AAUP data show that part-time faculty make up 42.7% of higher education faculty nationally, and yet part-time faculty were only 29.2% of our sample. A major motivation in conducting this study was the lack of part-time and full-time faculty information represented on jazz program websites (Hertzog and Hunter 2024). While constructing the database, many institutions with long lists of part-time jazz faculty were found, which provides anecdotal evidence that the true proportion of part-time jazz faculty may be higher than the national average across all disciplines. The study intended to conduct additional cross-group comparisons between full-time and part-time jazz faculty, but the uneven proportions of responses prevented such comparisons. Kimmel and Fairchild’s (2017) research highlighted the challenges that part-time faculty face in becoming part of the institutional culture. This lack of inclusion may contribute to part-time faculty being less likely to participate in survey research or even to feel that their contributions to such research are valuable. As is often the case with survey research, despite the large database, the low response rate indicates that many profile types may not have appeared in these data. Along with the underrepresentation of part-time faculty, a possible undercount of younger jazz faculty may also portray a jazz professoriate that is less diverse than reality. The small sample sizes of subgroups in this study, particularly Black faculty and faculty who identify as women did not allow for valid comparisons between subgroups. Thus, there remains a conspicuous literature gap on the employment characteristics of these groups. Additionally, the survey did not include many demographic questions; therefore, deeper demographic data (e.g., marital status) were not represented in this study.

This study was confined to the United States, thereby eliminating all other demographics, employment types, and unique characteristics found in the higher education systems of other countries with strong academic jazz programs (e.g., the United Kingdom). Even through examining each institutional website individually, in many cases, faculty email addresses were not directly obtainable thereby limiting our population size.

Recommendations for Practice

The most important recommendation for practice from this study is for institutional leaders and music administrators to ensure that pending retirements of jazz faculty will be replaced with tenure-track positions. Because “once a faculty line is shifted from the tenure-track, the funds are reallocated with little likelihood of the tenure-track position being restored” (Kimmel and Fairchild 2017, 52). The generational turnover coming in the jazz discipline could devastate the field if such a large proportion of the professoriate is replaced by contingent faculty. With almost a third of the sample in this study not having research or creative activity funding available to them, a further recommendation for practice is to extend such opportunities to all jazz faculty regardless of rank or position. Clearly, institutional support benefits the jazz art form through the sponsorship of musicians and their work. Because jazz faculty occupy such a wide range of employment types, consistent institutional support of research and creative activity would go some distance toward revaluing the academic profession of jazz education and reenforcing jazz ecosystems (Alexander 2020; Hertzog 2023). A final recommendation for practice concerns scholarly faculty that study jazz such as music theorists and musicologists. The data in this study suggest that jazz in higher education is a highly performance-based art form with an overwhelming portion of jazz faculty coming from performance backgrounds. Over time, it seems that these faculty are more likely to be replaced with contingent faculty due to their financial inefficiency for the institution (Alexander 2020; Miller 1993). By contrast, making an effort to attract more jazz scholars in “traditional” music academic positions (e.g., musicology or music theory) may ensure jazz representation in tenured lines while also allowing deeper integration of jazz scholarship in non-performance areas. Additionally, scholastic skill sets beyond performance and even musicology or theory, music industry studies (e.g., entertainment law, data analytics, music ecosystems, recording arts) may provide alternative pathways to employment that could fill the gaps found in this data set.

Suggestions for Future Research

The demographic data in this study suggests that longitudinal repetition would be critical to understanding how jazz faculty will evolve in the years to come. Several items in our survey point toward additional important research. Critically, in relation to the limitations in our sample, more comparative research on the experiences of part-time and full-time jazz faculty should be conducted. The subject of unionization and organized labor should be deeply explored with respect to jazz, music, and the arts—particularly as it may differ in locations with strong histories of faculty or music unions. The subject of institutional support should be explored in greater detail. Types of support such as travel, funding for commissions or performances, and guest artists, should be researched to paint a better picture of the opportunities and needs of musicians in the academy. Because the diversity of jazz faculty in this study was so limited, qualitative research supporting the type of quantitative work recently published by Pellegrinelli (2025) on the experiences or perspectives of minoritized jazz faculty (including faculty who identify as women) would be critical additions to the research corpus. Further work mirroring Prior, Barra, and Kramer’s (2017) study on women would provide great insight on how to improve equity in the discipline. One intriguing data point in the study was the 36% of respondents who indicated transitioning from graduate school directly into higher education employment. This population presents a fascinating chance to examine the institutionalization of jazz as a contrast to jazz as an aural tradition (Wilf 2020). More research on this segment of jazz faculty would greatly benefit jazz pedagogy and improve our understanding of what skills a jazz musician needs to ascend into the ‘professional’ realm.

Conclusions

The employment of jazz musicians across higher education in the United States is robust. A large portion of collegiate jazz educators are well-absorbed into the academy and its (ethical or not) employment hierarchies. Those that chose an academic pathway in their early to mid-career, who enjoy stability, higher salaries, and high satisfaction, are approaching retirement. This may contrast significantly with those (few) musicians of a similar age that are either the top of jazz industry (e.g., Pat Metheny) or those that continue to engage in low-margin tours and a portfolio of more anonymous work. However, the future of collegiate jazz educators may be tied to many factors far apart from jazz itself, and many questions on employment remain unanswered. As colleges and universities are impacted by enrollment decline (Grawe 2018), funding disparities (Newfield 2021), or devaluation of academic labor (Alexander 2020), talented jazz musicians may find employment in higher education more difficult to obtain. While only 393 respondents answered at least a part of our survey, over 3,000 jazz musicians teaching in higher education were compiled into our contact list, likely representing a large portion of all working jazz musicians in the United States. In as much as this study intended to assess the role of higher education as an employment “anchor” for jazz musicians and therefore, anchor institutions of jazz—we conclude that, on a national level, higher education is indeed a significant employer for jazz musicians. For the art form to continue to survive, especially in a geographically diverse way, employment matters in higher education may shape jazz industry and jazz art for decades to come.

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to the Jazz Education Network research group and staff that assisted us in the distribution of the survey. We are also grateful to our research assistants at the University of Arkansas. This study was approved by the Institutional Review Board at the University of Arkansas.

References

1. Abeles, Harold F., and Alicia Doyle. 2018. “The Promotion and Tenure Process in CMS Members’ Music Units.” College Music Symposium 58 (2): 1–22. 10.18177/sym.2018.58.sr.11392
2. Alexander, Bryan. 2020. Academia Next: The Futures of Higher Education. Johns Hopkins University Press.
3. Al-Gharbi, Musa. 2020. “Universities Run on Disposable Scholars.” In Labor and Academe in the Time of COVID-19, edited by The Chronicle of Higher Education, 20–22.
4. Altbach, Philip G. 2016. “Harsh Realities.” In American Higher Education in the Twenty-First Century, edited by Michael N. Bastedo, Philip G. Altbach, and Patricia J. Gumport. Johns Hopkins University Press. American Association of University Professors. 2016. “Data Snapshot: Contingent Faculty in U.S. Higher Ed.” https://www.aaup.org/data-snapshot-contingent-faculty-us-higher-ed American Association of University Professors. 2024a. Real Wages for Faculty Are Far Below Prepandemic Level. https://www.aaup.org/news/real-wages-faculty-are-far-below-prepandemic-level American Association of University Professors. 2024b. Post-Secondary Teachers by Employment Status and Demographics. https://data.aaup.org/ipeds-pst/
5. Anjou, Brittany. 2021. “Psychological Consequences of Careers in Musical Improvisation: A Mixed Methods Study of the Mental Health and Wellbeing of Professional Jazz and Improvising Musicians in New York City.” M.A. diss., University of Sheffield.
6. Ashley, Amanda, and Leslie Durham. 2021. “Universities as Arts and Cultural Anchors: Moving Beyond Bricks and Mortar to Entrepreneurship, Workforce, and Community Development Approaches.” Artivate 10 (2): 1–41. 10.34053/artivate.10.2.150
7. Bartlett, Ian, and David Tolmie. 2018. “What Are You Doing the Rest of Your Life? A Profile of Jazz/Contemporary Voice Graduates.” International Journal of Music Education 36 (2): 197–216. 10.1177/0255761417714606
8. Bok, Derek. 2013. Higher Education in America. Princeton University Press.
9. Bolger, Donald, and Erin Smith. 2006. “Faculty Status and Rank at Liberal Arts Colleges: An Investigation into the Correlation among Faculty Status, Professional Rights and Responsibilities, and Overall Institutional Quality.” College & Research Libraries 67 (3): 217–29. 10.5860/crl.67.3.217. Chronicle of Higher Education. 2025. The Money Problem No College Can Escape: Six views on how higher ed’s business model is cracking – and what to do about it. https://www.chronicle.com/article/a-new-financial-reality-for-higher-ed
10. Colby, George. 2023. “Data Snapshot: Tenure and Contingency in US Higher Education.” American Association of University Professors.
11. Comunian, Roberta, and Anna Gilmore, eds. 2016. Higher Education and the Creative Economy. Routledge.
12. Comunian, Roberta. 2019. “Complexity Thinking as a Coordinating Theoretical Framework for Creative Industries Research.” In A Research Agenda for Creative Industries, edited by Stuart Cunningham and Terry Flew, 39–57. Edward Elgar Publishing.
13. Crocker, Linda, and James Algina. 1986. Introduction to Classical and Modern Test Theory. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich College Publishers.
14. Crow, Michael M., and William B. Dabars. 2020. The Fifth Wave: The Evolution of American Higher Education. Johns Hopkins University Press.
15. Deitz, Samuel, and Ryan Henke. 2023. Higher Education in Science and Engineering. National Science Board (NSB-2023-32).
16. Gee, Jennifer and Karen Koner. 2025. “Professional Quality of Life Among Music Faculty in Higher Education.” College Music Symposium 65 (1): 18–34. 10.18177/sym.2025.65.sr.11671
17. Ginsberg, Benjamin. 2011. The Fall of the Faculty. Oxford University Press.
18. Gioia, Ted. 2011. The History of Jazz. Oxford University Press.
19. Grawe, Nathan D. 2018. Demographics and the Demand for Higher Education. Johns Hopkins University Press.
20. Hertzog, Jacob. 2021. Remixed, Remastered: Organizational Adaptation in Higher Music Education. PhD diss., University of Arkansas, Fayetteville. https://www.proquest.com/dissertations-theses/remixed-remastered-investigating-organizational/docview/2639198411/se-2
21. Hertzog, Jacob. 2022. “The Great Generalization: Organizational Adaptation Strategies as Entrepreneurship in Higher Music Education.” Artivate 11 (1): 1–28. 10.34053/artivate.11.1.169.
22. Hertzog, Jacob. 2023. “The Museum, the Laboratory, the Venue, the Embassy: Public Universities and the Future of Jazz.” Jazz Education in Research and Practice 4: 132–49. https://DOI10.2979/jazzeducrese.4.1.10
23. Hertzog, Jacob and Justin R. Hunter. 2024. “Mapping the Scene: Creative Ecosystems in Postsecondary Jazz Education.” Jazz Education in Research and Practice 5 (1): 27–46. https://DOI:10.2979/jazzeducrese.5.1.04. Higher Education Arts Data Services. 2020. Music Data Summaries.
24. Hutto, Pamela Noel. 2017. “The Relationship between Student Retention in Community College Courses and Faculty Employment Status.” Community College Journal of Research and Practice 41 (1): 4–17. 10.1080/10668926.2015.1069227.
25. Jacoby, Daniel. 2006. “Effects of Part-Time Faculty Employment on Community College Graduation Rates.” Journal of Higher Education 77 (6): 1081–103. 10.1080/00221546.2006.11778957.
26. Kajikawa, Loren. 2019. “The Possessive Investment in Classical Music: Confronting Legacies of White Supremacy in U.S. Schools and Departments of Music.” In Seeing Race Again, edited by Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw, Luke Charles Harris, Daniel Martinez HoSang, and George Lipsitz, 155–74. University of California Press.
27. Kimmel, Karen M., and Joseph L. Fairchild. 2017. “A Full-Time Dilemma: Examining the Experiences of Part-Time Faculty.” Journal of Effective Teaching 17 (1): 52–65.
28. Krueger, Alan B. 2019. Rockonomics: A Backstage Tour of What the Music Industry Can Teach Us about Economics and Life. New York: Currency.
29. Loveday, Catherine, George Musgrave, and Sally Gross. 2023. “Predicting Anxiety, Depression and Wellbeing in Professional and Nonprofessional Musicians.” Psychology of Music 51 (2): 508–22. 10.1177/03057356221096506
30. Mandernach, B. Jean, Jennifer Barclay, Stacey Husling, and Christopher S. Jackson. 2015. “Faculty Engagement as a Function of Instructional Mode and Employment Status.” Journal of Instructional Research 4: 159–67.
31. Maynard, Douglas C., and T. A. Joseph. 2008. “Are All Part-Time Faculty Underemployed? The Influence of Faculty Status Preference on Satisfaction and Commitment.” Higher Education 55: 139–54. 10.1007/s10734-006-9039-z.
32. Miller, Richard E. 1993. Institutionalizing Music: The Administration of Music Programs in Higher Education. Springfield, IL: C.C. Thomas.
33. Miller, Angela L., Amber D. Dumford, and Warren R. Johnson. 2017. “Music Alumni Play a Different Tune: Reflections on Acquired Skills and Career Outcomes.” International Journal of Educationand the Arts 18 (29): 1–21. http://www.ijea.org/v18n29/ National Center for Education Statistics. 2024a. Characteristics of Postsecondary Faculty. U.S. Department of Education. https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/csc/postsecondary-faculty National Center for Education Statistics. 2024b. Number of Full-Time Instructional Staff by Faculty and Tenure Status.
34. Nelson, Geoffrey, Mary Jo Monson, and Kaveh Adibifar. 2020. “The Gig Economy Comes to Academia: Job Satisfaction among Adjunct Faculty.” Cogent Education 7 (1). 10.1080/2331186X.2020.1786338.
35. Newfield, Christopher. 2021. “Universities after Neoliberalism: A Tale of Four Futures.” Radical Philosophy 2 (10): 77–86. https://www.radicalphilosophy.com/article/universities-after-neoliberalism
36. Pellegrinelli, Lara. 2025. Jazz Counts: Measuring the Jazz Faculty Gender Gap in Higher Education. Berklee College of Music. https://college.berklee.edu/jazz-gender-justice/jazz-counts-study
37. Prior, Brittany, Emily Barra, and Susan Kramer. 2019. Women in the Music Industry: Obstacles and Opportunities. Berklee College of Music.
38. Prouty, Kenneth E. 2005. “The History of Jazz: A Critical Reassessment.” Journal of Historical Research in Music Education 26 (2): 79–100. https://www.jstor.org/stable/40215303
39. Sabharwal, Meghna, and Elizabeth A. Corley. 2009. “Faculty Job Satisfaction across Gender and Discipline.” Social Science Journal 46 (3): 539–56. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1016/j.soscij.2009.04.015
40. Thelin, John R. 2011. A History of American Higher Education. 2nd ed. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.
41. Weaver, Molly A. 1993–94. “A Survey of Big Ten Institutions: Gender Distinctions Regarding Faculty Ranks and Salaries in Schools, Divisions, and Departments of Music.” The Quarterly 4–5 (5–1): 91–99. West Virginia University. 2023. Academic Transformation: Academic Portfolio Program Final Recommendations.
42. Wilder, Craig Steven. 2013. Ebony and Ivy: Race, Slavery, and the Troubled History of America’s Universities. Bloomsbury.
43. Wilf, Eitan Y. 2020. School for Cool: The Academic Jazz Program and the Paradox of Institutionalized Creativity. University of Chicago Press.
44. Wristen, Brenda. 2023. “An Exploratory Study of Relationships Between Job Perceptions and University Music Faculty Burnout.” College Music Symposium 63 (2): 1–16. 10.18177/sym.2023.63.sr.11612