Conversion of Appointments to the Tenure Track (2009)

This report was prepared by a subcommittee of the Committee on Contingent Faculty and the Profession and has been approved by the parent committee for publication for comment. Comments were accepted through Dec 31, 2009; the committee is now reviewing the comments and revising the report.

I. The Collapsing Faculty Infrastructure

 The past four decades have seen a failure of the social contract in faculty employment. In 1940 the joint Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure characterized the tenure system as a “means to certain ends,” specifically, “(1) freedom of teaching and research and of extramural activities and (2) a sufficient degree of economic security to make the profession attractive to men and women of ability. Freedom and economic security, hence tenure, are indispensable to the success of an institution in fulfilling its obligations to its students and to society.”

The tenure system was designed to secure reasonable compensation and to protect academic freedom through continuous employment. Financial and intellectual security enabled the faculty to carry out the public trust in teaching and research, and it provided a system of professional peer scrutiny in hiring, evaluation, and promotion. Today that system has all but collapsed.

With respect to faculty tenure, the Association holds to the following tenets:

1. With the exception of brief special appointments, all full-time faculty appointments should be either probationary or tenured.
2.  The probationary period should not exceed seven years.
3. Tenure can be granted at any professional rank (or without rank). The AAUP does not equate tenure with a particular faculty rank or status.¹
4. Tenure-line positions can be either part or full time.²
5. Faculty appointments, including part-time appointments in most cases, should incorporate all aspects of university life and the full range of faculty responsibilities.³  
6. Termination or nonrenewal of an appointment requires affordance of requisite academic due process.⁴ 
7. Faculty should enjoy economic security and, in the case of part-time faculty, equitable compensation.

In short, tenure was framed to unite the faculty within a system of common professional values, standards, and mutual responsibilities. By 2007, however, almost 70 percent of faculty members were employed off the tenure track. Many institutions use contingent faculty appointments throughout their programs; some retain a tenurable faculty in their traditional or flagship programs while staffing others—such as branch campuses, online offerings, and overseas campuses—almost entirely with contingent faculty. Faculty serving contingently generally work at significantly lower wages, often without health coverage and other benefits, and in positions that do not incorporate all aspects of university life or the full range of faculty rights and responsibilities. The tenure track has not vanished, but it has ceased to be the norm for faculty.

Members of the nontenurable majority of faculty often work in subprofessional conditions and without basic protections for academic freedom. Yet they teach most of the classes at most institutions, often at shockingly low rates of pay. As the AAUP’s 2009 Report on the Economic Status of the Profession points out, the erosion of the tenure track rests on the “fundamentally flawed premise” that faculty “represent only a cost, rather than the institution’s primary resource.” Hiring faculty on the basis of the lowest labor cost and without professional working conditions “represents a disinvestment in the nation’s intellectual capital precisely at the time when innovation and insight are most needed.”

A broad and growing front of research shows that the system of permanently temporary faculty appointments has negative consequences for student learning. In many cases this is not due to the quality and professional training of the faculty serving in temporary appointments— they may be highly qualified and superb teachers—but to the terms and conditions under which they are employed.

Mindful that their working conditions are their students’ learning conditions, many faculty holding contingent appointments struggle to shield students from the consequences of an increasingly unprofessional workplace. Faculty on contingent appointments frequently purchase their own computers and office supplies, stay in touch with students through cell phones and Internet connections that are not subsidized by their employers, and dip into their own wallets for journal subscriptions and travel to conferences to stay current in their fields. Those brave enough to risk reprimand or nonreappointment act as if they had academic freedom. Nonetheless, the evidence is clear that these individual acts, however heroic, are no substitute for professional working conditions. Institutions that serve the economically marginalized and the largest proportion of minority students, such as community colleges, typically employ the largest numbers of nontenurable faculty.

We are at a tipping point. In addition to the injuries to students, campuses that overuse contingent appointments show higher levels of disengagement and disaffection among faculty, even those with more secure positions. The committee sees a steadily shrinking minority, faculty with tenure, as increasingly unable to protect academic freedom, professional autonomies, and the faculty role in governance for themselves—much less for the contingent majority.

At many institutions, the proportion of faculty with tenure is below 10 percent, and too often tenure has become the privilege of those who are, have been, or soon will be administrators. At some research-intensive institutions, a growing number of faculty and administrators look upon tenure as a status marker, the privilege of researchers and not of teaching faculty.

II. It Is Time to Stabilize the Faculty

In opposition to this trend, a new consensus is emerging that it is time to stabilize the crumbling faculty infrastructure. Concerned legislators and some academic administrators have joined faculty associations in calling for dramatic reductions in the reliance on contingent appointments, commonly urging a maximum of 25 percent. Across the country, various forms of stabilization have been attempted by administrators and legislators, proposed by faculty associations, or negotiated at the bargaining table.

Many stabilization efforts focus on winning employment security for full-time contingent faculty, a fastgrowing class of appointment. In some cases, such positions effectively replace tenure lines; in others, they represent a more welcome consolidation of part-time contingent appointments. Increasingly, however, teachers and researchers in both full- and part-time contingent positions are seeking and receiving provisions for greater stability of employment: longer contracts, the expectation or right of continuing employment, provisions for orderly layoff, and other rights of seniority. These rights have been codified in a variety of contractual forms and terminologies, ranging from “instructor tenure” to “continuing” or “senior” lectureship to “certificates of continuing employment.” Some of these plans and provisions for stabilization are surveyed in appendix B.

As faculty hired into contingent positions seek and obtain greater employment security, often through collective bargaining, it is becoming clear that academic tenure and employment security are not reducible to each other. A potentially crippling development in these arrangements is that many, while improving on the entirely insecure positions they replace, offer limited conceptions of academic citizenship and service, few protections for academic freedom, little opportunity for professional growth, and no professional peer scrutiny in hiring, evaluation, and promotion.

III. Conversion to Tenure Is the Best Way to Stabilize the Faculty

The Committee on Contingent Faculty and the Profession believes that the best way to stabilize the faculty infrastructure is to bundle the employment and economic securities that activist contingent faculty are already winning for themselves with the rigorous professional peer scrutiny of the tenure system. The ways in which contingent teachers and researchers are hired, evaluated, and promoted often bypass the faculty entirely and are generally less rigorous than the intense peer scrutiny applied to faculty in tenurable positions.

Several noteworthy forms of conversion to tenure have been implemented or proposed at different kinds of institutions. The most successful forms are those that convert the status of individuals hired contingently to eligible for tenure, as opposed to those that convert positions while potentially leaving behind the faculty in them. As the AAUP emphasized in its 2003 policy document Contingent Appointments and the Academic Profession, stabilization of positions can and should be accomplished without negative consequences for current faculty and their students. Some of the different ways that conversion to tenure has been implemented or proposed are surveyed in appendix A.

The best practice for institutions of all types is to convert the status of faculty serving contingently to eligible for tenure with only minor changes in job description. This means that faculty hired contingently with teaching as the major component of their workload will become tenure-eligible primarily on the basis of successful teaching.⁵ (Similarly, contingent faculty with research as the major component of their workload may become eligible for tenure primarily on the basis of successful research.) In the long run, however, a balance is desirable for most faculty. A tenure bid by a person in a teaching-intensive position is unlikely to be successful in the absence of campus citizenship and professional development, so even teaching-intensive tenure-eligible workloads should include service and appropriate forms of engagement in research or the scholarship of teaching.

In some instances faculty serving contingently will prefer a major change in their job description with conversion to tenure eligibility. For example, some faculty in teaching-intensive positions might prefer to serve as research-intensive faculty. While the employer should not impose this major change in job description on the faculty member seeking tenure eligibility, the AAUP encourages the employer to accommodate the faculty member.

Finally, stabilizing the faculty infrastructure means substantially transforming the circumstances of teachers and researchers serving part time (about half of the faculty nationwide). Many faculty members serving part time might prefer full-time employment. Stabilizing this group means consolidating part-time work into tenure-eligible full-time and usually teaching-intensive positions—through attrition, not layoffs.

For faculty who wish to remain in the profession on a part-time basis over the long term, we recommend as best practice fractional positions, including fully proportional pay, eligibility for tenure and benefits, and proportional expectations for service and professional development.⁶

Tenure was conceived as a right rather than a privilege. As the 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure observed, the intellectual and economic securities of the tenure system must be the bedrock of any effort by higher education to fulfill its obligations to students and society.

Appendix A: Conversion Practices and Proposals

Some institutions have already taken steps to convert contingent faculty positions to the tenure track. At others, faculty senates or AAUP chapters have proposed mechanisms for doing so. Many of these practices and policies are less than ideal in one respect or another—for example, they convert the status of one group of faculty members while disregarding another group, or they convert an existing pool of faculty to the tenure line at once, while putting in place no system for further regularization of faculty or checks on further hiring of nontenure- track professors. In addition, some of the institutions cited below have since undermined the effect of the conversion to tenure-line appointments: the San Francisco Art Institute has terminated the appointments of numerous tenured faculty members on stated grounds of financial exigency, and the current faculty stabilization plan at Santa Clara University is objectionable for a number of reasons. Nevertheless, since these case histories may be useful as examples for faculty and administrations considering conversion, we include them here. In each case, we summarize the salient features of the conversion arrangements and indicate where more information can be obtained. Note that terminology and employment classifications vary from place to place; we have not attempted to standardize them.

Practices

The following institutions have put into place plans to convert contingent appointments to the tenure track.

St. John’s University

In 2008 administrators at St. John’s University in New York City converted twenty full-time contingent positions in its Institute for Core Studies—which comprises the university’s Writing Institute and two other small programs—into tenure-track appointments. Twenty writing teachers and eleven other faculty members were converted; the writing teachers were moved from the English department to the Institute for Core Studies for purposes of the conversion. Faculty at St. John’s, a private institution, are represented in collective bargaining jointly by an AAUP chapter and a freestanding faculty association.

Features of the conversion included the following:

• Tenure criteria are those that had already been in use in one unit of the university, a two-year program called the College of Professional Studies. The criteria require that faculty, in addition to documenting successful teaching, document accomplishments in two of these three areas: publishing, conference presentations, and service.
• The converted teachers were all in their first or second years when the conversion occurred. They are scheduled to be evaluated for tenure seven years  after the conversion (not after date of hire), but they can, like other faculty, apply for early tenure review if they desire.
• Once tenured, the converted faculty have only “programmatic tenure”—if their program is discontinued, the administration is not obligated to attempt to relocate them to a place elsewhere in the university.
• The faculty are eligible to participate in universitywide shared governance bodies.

San Francisco Art Institute

In 2005, after their institution had gone 135 years without a tenure system, the faculty union and the administration of the San Francisco Art Institute agreed to a one-time conversion of “resident faculty” (instructors with two- or three-year contracts) to tenured or tenure-eligible positions in accordance with a formula based on years of service and workload. Prior to the conversion, faculty members had achieved “resident” status by one of two means: (1) teaching a cumulative total of twelve or more contract units at the institute within a four-year period or (2) being appointed by the administration, after having applied for this status, from the ranks of “visiting faculty.”

After the one-time conversion, the institute has continued to hire “visiting faculty,” who are not part of the bargaining unit, on a semester-by-semester basis. Visiting faculty have no role in faculty governance. In February 2009, the institute’s administration announced it would lay off nine tenured faculty members, claiming conditions of financial exigency. The faculty union maintains that this unilateral action violates the collective bargaining agreement and is designed to dismantle the tenure system previously negotiated.

Features of the conversion included the following:

• Under the conversion plan, resident faculty with specific guaranteed loads of between three and six units per year were granted tenure and assigned a rank of associate or full professor.
• Other resident faculty were placed on the tenure track at the rank of assistant professor. Those who did not apply for tenure could accept appointment to faculty lecturer positions or emeritus status, in accordance with specific criteria.
• With the 2005 contract, all but six of the forty-two resident faculty were granted tenure as associate professors.
• Two of the six not tenured acquired emeritus status, three received faculty lecturer status, and one received assistant professor status. Lecturers and emeritus faculty may, but have often chosen not to, participate in shared governance. 
• The collective bargaining agreement includes an article on academic freedom based on AAUP language, and violations of academic freedom are grievable under the contract. Lecturers are covered by the collective bargaining agreement and therefore should have protection for academic freedom.

The contract is available at www.aaup-ca.org/CBA7.26.05%20final%20public.pdf.

Santa Clara University

In 1989, observing the growth of contingent faculty positions in the College of Arts and Sciences, concerned faculty and administrators created a one-time opportunity for at least fourteen full-time non-tenure-track faculty, most engaged in teaching-intensive positions, to enter the tenure stream.

In the aftermath of this one-time event, some units at Santa Clara adopted a policy of forcing lecturers to reapply for their jobs at the end of one or three years, sometimes against a national pool. In a drawn-out, as-yetincomplete contemporary stabilization plan (2005–10), the institution has created a new “renewable” lecturer rank off the tenure track, forcing many faculty to accept lower salaries and reduced benefits in order to avoid continual reapplication for their positions.

Features of the earlier conversion included the following:

• The affected faculty were given the choice of converting to assistant professorships (on the tenure track) or being promoted to a “senior lecturer” position (off the tenure track).
• Tenure was associated exclusively with researchintensive positions, and in most cases, accepting the invitation to the tenure stream meant a major change of job description. While most of the affected faculty had been hired into teaching-intensive positions, service and especially research would henceforth play a role in their evaluations.
• For those best suited for teaching-intensive appointments, the only option was a “senior” lectureship; individuals accepting these positions believed themselves to enjoy some enhanced employment security although handbook language defined them as at-will employees (that is, ones who could be dismissed with a year’s notice).
• Some of those who entered the tenure stream subsequently lost their tenure bids and either left the institution or became senior lecturers.
• Most of those who were granted tenure remained at the institution, including, according to one source, “at least five full professors, one vice provost, one endowed chair, and one Faculty Senate president— all recognized scholars in their fields and leaders at the university.”

Western Michigan University

In 2002, the AAUP chapter at Western Michigan University negotiated a contract that provided tenure for “faculty specialists”—a formerly non-tenure-track group that includes lecturers, clinical instructors, and certain academic professionals. A subsequent contract added aviation specialists to the tenure stream.

Features of the conversion included the following:

• The “faculty specialist” category was converted to the tenure line, as opposed to just the individuals employed at the time of conversion. Thus, in contrast to the situations at the San Francisco Art Institute and Santa Clara University, new appointments made after the conversion at Western Michigan are tenure-line appointments.
• Though now tenurable, faculty specialists remain differentiated from “traditionally ranked” faculty. Instead of being called “assistant professors,” “associate professors,” and so on, they can progress through the ranks of faculty specialist I, faculty specialist II, and master faculty specialist.
• Tenure reviews for faculty specialists are based on evaluation of their performance in two areas: “professional competence” and “professional service.” Particular emphasis is placed on competence in performing assignments specified in the letter of appointment, and the letter is included in the tenure file. (In contrast, traditionally ranked faculty are also evaluated in a third category, “professional recognition,” which includes research activities.)
• Departments may limit the participation of faculty specialists in tenure and promotion reviews of traditionally ranked faculty.
• The contract allows faculty specialists to be laid off more easily than traditionally ranked faculty if their positions are deemed to be no longer needed. The 2008–11 collective bargaining agreement is online at www.wmuaaup.net/files/2008-11_Contract.pdf.

Proposals

Though the proposals discussed below have not been enacted, they show ways that contingent faculty positions can be converted to tenure-track ones.

University of Colorado at Boulder

Members of the AAUP chapter at the University of Colorado at Boulder created a proposal to convert fulltime contingent faculty positions to the tenure track after a local reporter asked them to comment on the AAUP Contingent Faculty Index 2006, which documented the numbers of contingent faculty at institutions across the country. The chapter has worked for several years to gather information about contingent faculty on campus, disseminate information about instructor tenure, and advance its conversion proposal. As of May 2009, the university’s faculty senate had approved appointing an ad hoc committee to study the feasibility of tenure at the rank of instructor “among other options that provide equivalent protections of academic freedom and job security.”

Features of the proposal include the following:

• Full-time instructor positions would be converted to tenure-track positions with no change in pay, rank, course load, or professional expectations.
• Instructors who have completed a probationary period not to exceed seven years would be offered permanent employment, or instructor tenure, after a satisfactory final review.
• No changes would be required in the existing tenure track for research professors.

Read more at www.aaupcu.org. Click on “Instructor Tenure Project.”

Rutgers University

Members of the Rutgers university senate (a body composed of administrators, staff, students, and faculty), with assistance from the faculty union, submitted a two-part proposal to the full senate. Part one called for conversion of some non-tenure-track part-time positions to nontenure- track full-time positions; part two called for conversion of contingent full-time appointments to a new “teaching tenure track.” The university senate endorsed part one and recommended to departments that they combine part-time positions into full-time positions when practicable. But the senate rejected part two, citing, among other concerns, potential complications involved with hiring and promotions in a two-tier tenure system; the possibility that the addition of a teaching tenure track would compromise Rutgers’s position as a member of the Association of American Universities; and concern that new teaching tenuretrack lines might be siphoned from the existing pool of research-teaching tenure lines. Senators backing the proposal plan to introduce a revised version strengthening part one and stressing the importance of passing part two by demonstrating that it protects, rather than detracts from, the academic professions.

Features of the proposal included the following:

• Responsibility for determining teaching tenure-track faculty workloads would be assigned to the department or unit, in accordance with the collective bargaining agreement.
• The promotion and tenure process would parallel the existing research-teaching tenure process but with discipline-based criteria specific to the appointments.
• Quality of teaching and dedication to undergraduate education would be recommended criteria for promotion.
• Integration of service and scholarship of teaching into teaching tenure-track faculty assignments would be encouraged.

Appendix B: Forms of Stabilization That Fall Short of Conversion

Many institutions have adopted (or faculty unions have bargained for) provisions that fall well short of tenure but that offer contingent faculty some protection and the institution some stability. Often, these take the form of improved job security, protections for academic freedom, or provisions for inclusion of contingent faculty in academic citizenship and governance. The practices of the institutions below, used as examples, are described in terms of these three areas. The area of job security is further broken down into these common mechanisms: layoff rights, automatic reappointment rights that move faculty from semester to annual appointments and from annual to renewable multiyear appointments, and mechanisms that protect either the “time-base” (the percentage of full-time workload to which a contingent faculty member is entitled) or seniority-based preference.

Note that terminology and employment classifications vary from place to place; here, as in appendix A, we have not attempted to standardize them. In many cases, we summarize complex provisions that may have additional or negative aspects not addressed here. We therefore urge interested readers to read the complete collective bargaining contracts.

California State University

Under the California State University system, the largest in the nation, tenure-line faculty and part- and full-time non-tenure-track “lecturers” are represented in collective bargaining by the AAUP-affiliated California Faculty Association, and both are in the same bargaining unit. The union has won enhanced job security provisions for lecturers as described below. The collective bargaining agreement between the California Faculty Association and the trustees of California State University is available at www.calfac.org/contract.html.

Separately, Assembly Concurrent Resolution 73, passed in 2001, is a state legislative mandate to increase the ratio of tenure-line to lecturer faculty in the CSU system to 75:25.⁷ It urges administrators and the union to collaborate in developing a plan to ensure that no currently employed lecturers lose their jobs because of the change and that qualified lecturers are seriously considered for tenure-track positions. Although Assembly Concurrent Resolution 73 could open a path to conversion, it is an unfunded mandate.

The collective bargaining agreement includes provisions relating to job security in the following areas:

1. Automatic mechanisms for reemployment rights:
   
   • Following two consecutive semesters or three quarters in an academic year, lecturers with satisfactory performance are offered one-year appointments.
   
   • After six consecutive years of service in a same department or program on the same campus, lecturers with satisfactory performance are offered renewable three-year appointments.
   
   
2. Time-base and seniority-based rights:
   
   • Lecturers receive a work preference based on seniority that allows accrual up to a full-time load. (However, volunteers, administrators, and graduate teaching assistants receive preference of assignment over part-time lecturers.)
   
   
3. Layoff and recall rights:
   
   • For full-time lecturer appointments, layoff procedures must be followed when reducing lecturers’ hours or prematurely ending their employment.
   
   • Alternatives to layoff of full-time lecturers must be explored.
   
   • Lecturers on three-year appointments have recall rights for a period of up to three years.

Although the collective bargaining agreement does not include an article on academic freedom, the statewide academic senate has adopted policies that are based on AAUP standards and apply to all faculty. Although not grievable through the contractual procedure, violations of academic freedom may be brought before a faculty hearing committee.

The collective bargaining agreement does not include provisions relating to academic citizenship and shared governance. The degree of inclusion of lecturers in shared governance varies among the twenty-three campuses, which establish their own policies. Some campus senates have dedicated lecturer seats while others allow lecturers to run for regular seats. The CSU statewide academic senate has urged local campus senates to integrate lecturers into shared governance. It presently has two statewide lecturer senators. While the collective bargaining agreement defines all unit members as “faculty,” some campus senate constitutions restrict the definition to tenure-track faculty and full-time lecturers. Generally speaking, lecturers cannot serve on campus and department committees, unlike in the union, where they are represented at all levels of governance.

City University of New York

Under the City University of New York system, tenureline faculty, full-time non-tenure-track “lecturers,” and part-time “adjunct faculty” are represented in collective bargaining by the AAUP-affiliated Professional Staff Congress. Contingent faculty have improved their job security through the collective bargaining agreement between CUNY and the Professional Staff Congress, which is available at http://portal.cuny.edu/cms/id/cuny/documents/informationpage/2002-2007_PSC_CUNY_Contract.pdf.

The agreement includes provisions relating to job security in the following areas:

1. Automatic mechanisms for reemployment rights:
   
   • After five years of continuous full-time service, lecturers become eligible for “certificates of continuous employment,” which guarantee full-time reappointment subject to satisfactory performance, sufficiency of enrollment, and the program’s academic and financial stability. 
   
   • Under the collective bargaining agreement, university bylaws, and other applicable rules and regulations, lecturers who fill these non-tenure-track lines are treated no differently than faculty hired on tenure-track lines.
   
   • Lecturers offered yearly appointments have priority for assignment over adjuncts with semester appointments for a course they are capable of teaching.
   
   •  Adjuncts who are appointed for a seventh semester are given a yearly appointment.
   
   • Appointees who have commenced work prior to official board approval have the option of receiving pro-rata compensation for time worked.
   
   
2. Time-base and seniority-based rights:
   
   • Part-time lecturers wishing to apply for full-time lecturer status must have taught for eight of the ten most recent semesters in the same or a related department, with a minimum of six classroom contact hours in seven of the ten semesters.
   
   • When faculty service has been continuous and a break occurs in full-time service by virtue of reduced schedule, such less-than-full-time service is pro-rated toward its equivalency in full-time service and accrued toward the faculty member’s base time.
   
   
3. Layoff and recall rights:
   
   • There is no contractual provision for compensation for cancellation of classes provided that adjuncts are informed “as soon as it is known to college authorities” and before classes commence.
   
   • Lecturers without certificates of continuous employment and adjunct faculty may be laid off or have their time base reduced if courses are assigned to tenure-stream faculty or graduate students teaching in the department of their major.

Academic freedom is addressed in the preamble to the contract. The agreement includes no explicit provisions on academic freedom for faculty members.

The collective bargaining agreement includes the following provisions relating to academic citizenship and shared governance:

• The university faculty senate allows each college a seat to be shared by a lecturer delegate and a (tenure-line) college lab technician. Adjuncts do not have a separate seat.
• Inclusion of lecturers in shared governance varies among the colleges of CUNY.
• Generally speaking, although adjuncts are invited to attend departmental meetings, they may not vote.

New School

At the New School, part-time faculty are represented in collective bargaining by Academics Come Together– United Auto Workers. Such faculty are classified as “probationary” from the first semester or session of teaching through the fourth; as “postprobationary” from the fifth through the tenth; and as “annual” or “multiyear” faculty thereafter. The collective bargaining agreement is available at www.actuaw.org/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderfiles/New_School_contract.pdf.

The collective bargaining agreement includes provisions relating to job security in the following areas:

1. Automatic mechanisms for reemployment rights: 
   
   • Beginning with the eleventh semester or session, faculty are eligible for either annual or three-year appointments (called “multiyear”); to get a three-year appointment, they must successfully complete a special review.
   
   
2. Time-base and seniority-based rights:
   
   • With a few exclusions, such as summer courses and private lessons, course base load is set and preserved based on the highest of the last two years of the postprobationary period for annual appointments or the last three years prior to the multiyear period. Both credit and noncredit courses count toward base load.
   
   • The agreement identifies provisions for maintaining faculty base loads by seniority; senior faculty can displace less senior faculty to maintain base load.
   
   
3. Layoff and recall rights:
   
   •  After the first two semesters or sessions of a newly developed course offering, postprobationary faculty whose courses are canceled are entitled to assignment of a replacement course or a cancellation fee equaling 15 percent of the pay they would have received for the course. In the same circumstances, annual faculty receive 30 percent of the pay and length-of-service credit for the semester or session, and multiyear faculty receive 50 percent of the pay.
   
   • If a program is discontinued, annual faculty receive a fee of 50 percent of salary from the prior year and recall rights for two years. Multiyear faculty receive 75 percent of salary from the last year of the previous multiyear appointment and recall rights for two years, or, at the faculty member’s discretion, a one-time terminable appointment as an annual faculty member.

The agreement includes the following provisions relating to academic freedom:

• University policies on academic freedom shall be in effect for all faculty, full and part time.
• Although the agreement includes no specific grievance provision for infringement of academic freedom, it does refer individuals whose acts abridge that freedom to the appropriate academic division for disciplinary review.

The agreement includes the following provisions relating to citizenship and shared governance: 

• Each academic division is entitled to two representatives to the faculty senate. An additional eleven members are allocated based on the numbers of full-time equivalent faculty in each division. Part-time faculty may run for and be elected to these positions.
• Governance opportunities for part-time faculty vary by department, ranging from inclusion through elected positions to no inclusion at all.

Oakland University

At Oakland University, all full-time faculty and part-time faculty who teach sixteen or more credits a year are represented in collective bargaining by an AAUP chapter. The unit includes the following categories of faculty, listed in descending order of job security: full-time tenure-track faculty, full-time “special instructors,” and part-time “special lecturers.” The full-time special instructors receive the same benefits as tenure-track faculty, including sabbatical eligibility. The contract is available online at www.oaklandaaup.org/2006-09_Contract.pdf.

The agreement includes provisions relating to job security in the following areas:

1. Automatic mechanisms for reemployment rights:
   
   • Special instructors are first employed for a period of three years and may be reappointed twice for two year periods before undergoing an up-or-out review that results in either appointment with job security or termination.
   
   • For the first four years of employment, special lecturers work on one-year contracts; after that, they have two-year renewable contracts.
   
   
2. Time-base and seniority-based rights:
   
   • Once special instructors are granted job security, they are more difficult to lay off. Special instructors with job security may apply to be promoted to the rank of associate professor with tenure.
   
   • Special lecturers earn more as their seniority grows. They are eligible to buy into medical and vision plans, and the portion of premiums paid by the university grows as lecturers’ seniority increases.
   
   
3. Layoff and recall rights:
   
   • Special instructors without job security are laid off after all part-time faculty but before most tenureline assistant professors and before all tenured faculty. Special instructors with job security are laid off after most assistant professors but before all tenured faculty.
   
   • Special instructors have recall rights.
   
   • Special lecturers do not have layoff or recall rights.

Regarding academic freedom, the collective bargaining agreement stipulates that neither party may abrogate “the rights, privileges, and responsibilities of individual faculty members in the conduct of their teaching and research, including, but not limited to, the principles of academic freedom and academic responsibility.”

The agreement includes the following provisions relating to academic citizenship and shared governance:

• Special instructors “are entitled to all perquisites of faculty membership and employment.”
• Professional responsibilities include teaching, research, and creative activity and service; “active participation in all three aspects of the workload is the standard.”

Rider University

At Rider University, tenure-line faculty and part-time “adjuncts” of all ranks (lecturer, instructor, assistant professor, associate professor, or professor) are represented in collective bargaining in the same bargaining unit by the Rider University chapter of the AAUP. The collective bargaining agreement between Rider University and the Rider University AAUP chapter is available at www.rider.edu/files/aaup_2007-11.pdf.

The agreement includes provisions relating to job security in the following areas:

1. Automatic mechanisms for reemployment rights:
   
   • Adjuncts with a minimum of three years “priority appointment” status may be granted annual contracts contingent on sufficient enrollment for the assigned courses.
   
   • Adjuncts with priority appointment or “preferred” status may teach up to nine classroom contact hours in a single semester. (See the section below for how priority appointment and preferred status are gained.)
   
   • For appointment to courses, full-time faculty take precedence over both priority and nonpriority adjunct faculty (including for overload requests that occur before a due date), and adjuncts with priority status take precedence over those without it.
   
   
2. Time-base and seniority-based rights:
   
   • After completing four semesters, adjuncts may apply for promotion from adjunct instructor to adjunct assistant professor; after six semesters, from adjunct assistant professor to adjunct associate professor; and after six semesters, from adjunct associate professor to adjunct professor.
   
   • After teaching approximately half time for three years (specifics vary by campus and unit) and successfully completing a review by full-time members of their department or program, adjuncts are eligible for priority appointment status.
   
   • After teaching approximately half-time for six years (specifics vary by campus and unit), adjuncts are eligible for preferred status.
   
   
3. Layoff and recall rights:
   
   • Without proper cause, the university may not discharge or suspend an adjunct whose term appointment has not expired.
   
   • Adjuncts can take a twenty-four-month break in service, whether voluntary or due to a lack of work, and not be terminated or lose preferred status.

The agreement includes the following provisions relating to academic freedom:

• The clause on academic freedom includes all adjuncts.
• Adjuncts, like other faculty, have recourse to the grievance process if their academic freedom rights are violated.

Relating to citizenship and shared governance, adjuncts are eligible to participate in academic governance committees. They are not eligible to become department chairs.

While enhanced job security is provided under the collective bargaining agreement through continuing annual appointments, the agreement does not entitle adjunct faculty to full-time tenure-track appointments when they become available, nor does it offer opportunity for conversion to tenure eligibility. Adjuncts must undergo the same appointment procedure as all other applicants. Additionally, the possession of faculty rank gained under the Rider University promotion procedure as an adjunct faculty member does not entitle the successful adjunct faculty candidate to the corresponding rank if he or she does secure a tenure-line position.

University of California

In the University of California system, tenure-line faculty, also called “senate faculty,” are not unionized, with the exception of the Santa Cruz campus; lecturers and instructional faculty, or “nonsenate faculty,” are unionized and are represented in collective bargaining by the American Federation of Teachers. The collective bargain ing agreement between the University of California– American Federation of Teachers and the regents of the University of California is available at http://atyourservice.ucop.edu/employees/policies_employee_labor_relations/
collective_bargaining_units/nonsenateinstructional_nsi/agreement.html.

The agreement includes provisions relating to job security in the following areas:

1. Automatic mechanisms for reemployment rights:
   
   • Initial appointments may be for a period of up to two years. Reappointment during the first six years may be for a period of up to three years.
   
   • Nonsenate faculty become eligible for continuing appointments following the completion of six years in the same department, program, or unit on the same campus and a satisfactory peer evaluation. With certain exceptions, the appointment percentage will be at least equal to that of the previous year.
   
   • Reemployment rights are provided for appointments before six years (for the same period of the appointment duration up to a year) and for continuing appointments (for up to two years).
   
   • The agreement mandates for nonsenate faculty campus-based professional development fund pools and councils for professional development whose responsibility is to develop guidelines and procedures for awarding the funds.
   
   
2. Time-base and seniority-based rights:
   
   • Appointments may be permanently augmented up to a full-time workload.
   
   • There are “permanently augmented” and “temporarily augmented” continuing appointments. Temporary augmentation does not enhance time base.
   
   •  Tenure-track faculty and graduate students take precedence over nonsenate faculty in course assignments if several criteria are met, including pedagogical relevance. For nonsenate faculty there is a seniority aspect that lowers the chance of reduction of a continuing appointment.
   
   
3. Layoff and recall rights:
   
   • In terminating employment or reducing time base, the university must observe layoff with reemployment rights for all faculty, regardless of appointment type.
   
   •  Alternatives to layoff are available to continuing nonsenate faculty.
   
   • The contract specifies procedures for dismissal based on unsatisfactory academic performance documented in the personnel review file and opportunity for a remediation plan. It also establishes procedures for disciplinary action and dismissal for misconduct.

The agreement includes the following provisions relating to academic freedom:

• The academic freedom policy in effect at the time and place of employment extends to nonsenate faculty.
• Alleged violations of academic freedom may be reviewed in accordance with procedures established by the campus academic senate.
• The grievance process is the union’s major way of maintaining academic freedom and job security for nonsenate faculty.

The agreement includes the following provisions relating to citizenship and shared governance:

• Nonsenate faculty are eligible to participate in reviews of other nonsenate faculty in instances of possible disciplinary action and dismissal. Nonsenate faculty may solicit peer input.
• Although nonsenate faculty do not have senate representation, the agreement includes a compensation waiver authorizing them to participate in any and all academic senate committees.

In spite of the enhanced job security provided by the collective bargaining agreement, the position of nonsenate faculty remains precarious, with no conversion to tenure eligibility. Lecturers may be laid off (reduced or separated) if courses are assigned to tenure-stream faculty or graduate students teaching in the department of their major.

Vancouver Community College

All faculty at Canada’s Vancouver Community College— “regular,” “term,” and “auxiliary”—are represented in collective bargaining by the Vancouver Community College Faculty Association; the faculty association in turn is a member of the Federation of Post-secondary Educators of BC, which negotiates for its members on the system level. Notable provisions of job security have been established through both systemwide and local contracts. This system does not use the term tenure, but “regular” faculty enjoy protections similar to those of tenure. The collective bargaining agreements are available at www.fpse.ca/agreements/collective. The summary below pertains to Vancouver Community College only; local agreements at other federation institutions vary.

The agreement includes provisions relating to job security in the following areas:

1. Automatic mechanisms for reemployment rights:
   
   • Initial appointments may be for a period of up to two years. Reappointment during the first six years may be for a period of up to three years.
   
   • Faculty may be hired directly into regular status as “probationary regular” for a one-year period, after which they become “permanent regular.” The probationary period can be waived.
   
   • Regular faculty hold appointments at half-time or above, which are expected to be continuous from year to year until retirement.
   
   • Term faculty appointments stipulate starting and ending dates and carry no expectation of automatic renewal.
   
   • Term faculty are granted regular status without probation if they have held appointments at half time or above for at least 380 days within a continuous twentyfour- month period and have not received an unsuccessful evaluation during their term appointments.
   
   
2. Time-base and seniority-based rights:
   
   • Regular faculty working part time have the right by seniority to accrue further time up to full-time status.
   
   • Seniority is accrued at the same rate by full- and part-time regulars, so a two-thirds-time regular faculty member may have more seniority than a fulltime colleague.
   
   
3. Layoff and recall rights:
   
   • All layoffs are by reverse-accrued seniority, not by full- or part-time status.
   
   • Laid-off instructors who are on recall accrue seniority on the same basis as other regular instructors.
   
   • Before any term appointment is made in a department or area, all regular employees who are eligible for recall shall be recalled.

The collective bargaining agreement does not have explicit provisions on academic freedom.

The agreement includes the following provisions relating to citizenship and shared governance:

• All faculty have full voting rights in departments, including the right to elect and be elected as chair (in the latter case, the person is converted to fulltime regular status).
• Regular and term faculty share both teaching and nonteaching mandated duties regardless of full- or part-time status.
• Term and regular faculty who maintain set workload levels during a fiscal year receive professional development time and funding. 
   

Mayra Besosa (Spanish), California State University, San Marcos, co-chair
Marc Bousquet (English), Santa Clara University, co-chair
Lacy Barnes (Psychology), Reedley College
Cary Nelson (English), University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Marcia Newfield (English), Borough of Manhattan Community College, City University of New York
Jeremy Nienow (Anthropology), Minneapolis Community and Technical College and Inver Hills Community College
Karen G. Thompson (English), Rutgers University, consultant
Gwendolyn Bradley, staff

The Subcommittee

End Notes

1. Contingent Appointments and the Academic Profession. Back to text

2. Ibid; Recommended Institutional Regulations on Academic Freedom and Tenure, Regulation 13. Back to text

3. Contingent Appointments. Back to text
 
4. 1940 Statement of Principles; Recommended Institutional Regulations, Regulation 13. Back to text

5. For part-time contingent faculty, the AAUP’s 2006 addition to its Recommended Institutional Regulations on Academic Freedom and Tenure (Regulation 13) urges that “prior to consideration of reappointment beyond a seventh year, part-time faculty members who have taught at least twelve courses or six terms within those seven years . . . be provided a comprehensive review with a view toward (1) appointment with part-time tenure where such exists, (2) appointment with part-time continuing service, or (3) nonreappointment. Those appointed with tenure shall be afforded the same procedural safeguards as full-time tenured faculty.” Back to text

6. At least since its 1980 statement The Status of Part- Time Faculty, the AAUP has recommended that colleges consider creating a class of “regular part-time faculty members, consisting of individuals who, as their professional career, share the teaching, research, and administrative duties customary for faculty at their institution . . . [and] the opportunity to achieve tenure and the rights it confers.” Back to text

7. http://info.sen.ca.gov/pub/01-02/bill/asm/ab_0051-0100/acr_73_bill_20010924_chaptered.html. Back to text