Difference Between Faculty and Staff

The key difference between faculty and staff is that the term faculty refers to an academic staff of a university or an academic division or a group of departments within a university whereas the term staff refers to all the people employed by a particular organization.

Faculty and staff are two similar words that confuse most of us. This confusion stems from the usage of these two words to refer to employees of an organization. It is important to note that while staff refers to all employees in an organization in general, faculty specifically refers to the employees of an academic institution.

CONTENTS

1. Overview and Key Difference
2. What is Staff
3. What is Faculty
4. Side by Side Comparison – Faculty vs Staff in Tabular Form
5. Summary

What is Staff?

Staff refers to all employees in an organization. It can include all members of an organization including the management as well as the cleaning crew. For example, hospital staff include doctors, nurses, pharmacists, pathologists, therapists, administrative officials, as well as support staff. Similarly, a restaurant staff includes a manager, chefs, cooks, dishwashers, servers, bartenders, etc.

Figure 01: Restaurant Staff

Accountants, assistants, managers, registrars, clerks, peons, engineers, etc. are some examples of posts we can include in the staff of a general office. Most of these people usually have regular working hours.

What is Faculty?

In academia, the term faculty basically has two meanings. Faculty can refer to a division or a group of departments within a university that is dedicated to one subject area. For example, a university may have several faculties as faculty of medicine, faculty of commerce, faculty of engineering, faculty of humanities, faculty of law, faculty of education, etc.

Figure 02: Faculty Building

However, faculty can also refer to the academic staff of an academic institution, a university in particular. This usage is especially common in North American English. Academic staff or faculty may include professors of various ranks (adjunct professors, associate professors, assistant professors, etc.), lecturers, and researchers. It is also important to note that we use this word specifically to use the academic staff of a university, but we don’t use it to refer to a staff of a primary or secondary school. Moreover, not all staff in a university are called faculty; those officials involved in administrative and support tasks are called the non-academic staff, not faculty.

What is the Difference Between Faculty and Staff?

Staff refers to all the people employed by a particular organization. Faculty can refer to either an academic staff of a university or an academic division within a university. The basic difference between faculty and staff is that staff refers to all members of an organization whereas faculty specifically refers to the academic staff of a university. Moreover, faculty typically include professors of various ranks, lecturers, and researchers whereas staff include various ranks within an organization inducing managers, doctors, engineers, assistants, accountants, secretaries, and clerks.

The below infograph presents a detailed comparison of the difference between Faculty and Staff.

Summary – Faculty vs Staff

The basic difference between faculty and staff is that staff refers to all members of an organization whereas faculty specifically refers to the academic staff of a university. Moreover, faculty can also refer to a division or a group of departments within a university that is dedicated to one subject area.

Reference:

1. “Faculty (Academic Staff).” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 30 Mar. 2018. Available here 

Image Courtesy:

1.”13712347603″ by www.audio-luci-store.it (CC BY 2.0) via Flickr
2.”Faculty of Medicine Naresuan University Building” By Wonton2ton (talk) – Own work  (CC BY 3.0) via Commons Wikimedia  

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