Adequacy of full-time faculty is a fundamental indicator used by US accreditors to ensure quality learning environments. This paper aims to explore institutional responses to one US regional accreditor to identify themes related to adequacy of faculty in support of institutional missions over a two-year period.,A qualitative design was used to examine eighteen institutional narratives. The research question was “What themes are identified by institutions to document adequacy of full-time faculty for compliance with accreditation?” The highest level of degree awarded was used to organize emergent themes from institutional narratives (e.g. associate, baccalaureate, master’s and doctoral level institutions).,The study identified five themes: definition of full-time faculty; variation in assessment measures used to demonstrate adequacy of full-time faculty; institutional characteristics and full-time faculty; responsibilities of full-time faculty; and relationship between full-time faculty and student learning outcomes. The findings showed that the institutions used multiple assessment measurements to demonstrate compliance.,The research design was limited to one US regional accreditation agency; therefore, the acceptable evidence related to adequacy of full-time faculty may differ among accrediting bodies, which would impact the institutional narrative and methods for demonstrating compliance. Second, some of the institutional groupings included only one or two narratives.,The finding of this study could have important implications for the research and practice of evaluating faculty in accreditation reviews.,There have been limited studies on accreditation narratives focused on the adequacy of full-time faculty. This study offers findings that may be of benefit to non-US and US higher education institutions in planning for faculty staffing patterns to support fulfillment of the institutional mission.

中文翻译：

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专职教师的质量保证：机构叙事

全职教师的充足性是美国认证机构用来确保优质学习环境的基本指标。本文旨在探讨机构对一位美国地区认证机构的反应，以确定与教职人员的充分性相关的主题，以支持为期两年的机构使命。采用定性设计研究了18种机构叙述。研究问题是“机构确定了哪些主题来证明专职教师是否符合认证资格？” 最高学位的授予用于组织机构叙事中的新兴主题（例如，副学士，学士学位，硕士和博士学位机构）。研究确定了五个主题：全职教师的定义；用于证明专职教师充足性的评估方法的差异；机构特点和专职教师；专职教师的职责；全日制教师与学生学习成果之间的关系。研究结果表明，这些机构使用了多种评估方法来证明其合规性。研究设计仅限于美国一家地区认证机构；因此，认可机构之间有关全职教师充分性的可接受证据可能有所不同，这会影响机构的叙述和证明遵守情况的方法。其次，某些机构团体仅包含一个或两个叙述。本研究的发现可能对认可评审中教师评估的研究和实践具有重要意义。围绕全职教师的充分性而进行的认证叙事的研究很少。这项研究提供的发现可能对非美国和美国的高等教育机构在规划教职人员配置模式以支持机构使命的实现方面有所帮助。