Methodology
How the monitored population is defined, how a subject is confirmed, and what the map shows.
The denominator
The monitored population is 500,000 tenure-line faculty and senior administrators at accredited four-year institutions. The figure is derived from AAUP and NCES data.
The AAUP put full-time tenured and tenure-track appointments at about 32 percent of all US faculty in fall 2023. The NCES counted 842,400 full-time faculty at degree-granting postsecondary institutions in fall 2022, within a total faculty of roughly 1.5 million. Applying that proportion produces an estimated monitored population of approximately 500,000.
- AAUP, Data Snapshot: Tenure and Contingency in US Higher Education, Fall 2023
- NCES, Digest of Education Statistics, Table 315.20
The numerator
The numerator is 4. It is the current count of confirmed subjects, and it has been the whole of the numerator for every quarter since June 2026.
Confirmation
A subject is confirmed on evidence of an avowed conservative disposition. Evidence is graded on four levels, and the grade is printed on every file.
| Grade | Meaning | Files |
|---|---|---|
| Direct | A relevant public statement is attributable to the subject. | 1 |
| Limited direct | One relevant public statement is on file. | 1 |
| Circumstantial | Based on observed conduct; no attributable statement is on file. | 2 |
| Inferential | Based on objects or associations; no relevant conduct or attributable statement is on file. | 1 |
Exclusions
A preference for price allocation, an objection to a fee, a stated wish to be left alone, and the ownership of a vehicle are each, on their own, insufficient. All four are laissez-faire dispositions and this organization does not count them.
Three of four current confirmations rest on a preference for price allocation, an objection to a fee, and a bumper sticker. The published criteria exclude all three. Applied consistently, the criteria yield a monitored population of one. The criteria are under review.
Population and coverage
The organization has observed and classified 4,061 faculty at 327 institutions. That is the caseload, not an estimate and not a sample: it is the set of people the organization has actually looked at. Faculty not yet observed are not shown on the map and are not counted in any figure on this site except the estimated national population of 500,000.
Institutional names and coordinates are retained for geographic coverage. Non-subject faculty records are synthetic: names, departments, research lines, and the classification — liberal, progressive, socialist — are generated from fixed data sets and do not represent individual faculty members.
Each record carries the line Basis not recorded. This is accurate. The organization has never recorded why any of them were classified as they were. It has recorded, at length, why four were.
Cost
The organization’s annual budget is $6,800,000 against a monitored population of 4, or $1.7 million per subject. Staff number 31, or 7.8 per subject.
Corrections
In March 2022 a subject wrote to Conservative Watch to note that the date published for a 2016 state board hearing was wrong by one day, and enclosed the transcript page. The correction was applied to the following edition. It is the only correction this organization has received from a subject.