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This report was prepared by a subcommittee of the Committee on Contingency and the Profession. The parent committee approved publication of this final report in 2010. Statistical information in the report was updated in 2014.
For reference, you can also see just the recommendations from the report.
The past four decades have seen a failure of the social contract in faculty employment. The tenure system was designed as a big tent, aiming to unite a faculty of tremendously diverse interests within a system of common professional values, standards, and mutual responsibilities.1 It aimed to secure reasonable compensation and to protect academic freedom through continuous employment.2 Financial and intellectual security enabled the faculty to carry out the public trust in both teaching and research, sustaining a rigorous system of professional peer scrutiny in hiring, evaluation, and promotion. Today the tenure system has all but collapsed.
Before 1970, as today, most full-time faculty appointments were teaching-intensive, featuring teaching loads of nine hours or more per week. Nearly all of those full-time teaching-intensive positions were on the tenure track. This meant that most faculty who spent most of their time teaching were also campus and professional citizens, with clear roles in shared governance and access to support for research or professional activity.3
Today, most faculty positions are still teaching intensive, and many of those teaching-intensive positions are still tenurable. In fact, the proportion of teaching-intensive to research-intensive appointments has risen sharply.4 However, the majority of teaching-intensive positions have been shunted outside of the tenure system. This has in most cases meant a dramatic shift from “teaching-intensive” appointments to “teaching- only” appointments, featuring a faculty with attenuated relationships to campus and disciplinary peers. This seismic shift from “teaching-intensive” faculty within the big tent of tenure to “teaching-only” faculty outside of it has had severe consequences for students as well as faculty themselves, producing lower levels of campus engagement across the board and a rising service burden for the shrinking core of tenurable faculty.
The central question we have to face in connection with this historic change is real and unavoidable: Should more classroom teaching be done by faculty supported by the rigorous peer scrutiny of the tenure system? Most of the evidence says yes, and a host of diverse voices agree. This view brings together students, faculty, legislators, the AAUP, and even many college and university administrators. At some institutions, however, particularly at large research universities, the tenure system has already been warped to the purpose of creating a multitier faculty. In order to avoid this, as E. Gordon Gee of Ohio State University puts it, individuals must have available to them “multiple ways to salvation” inside the tenure system. Tenure was not designed as a merit badge for research-intensive faculty or as a fence to exclude those with teaching-intensive commitments.
By 2007, almost 70 percent of faculty members were employed off the tenure track.5 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 faculty on contingent appointments. Faculty serving on a contingent basis 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. This means that the majority of faculty work in subprofessional conditions, often without basic protections for academic freedom.
Some of these appointments, particularly in science and medicine, are research intensive or research only, and the faculty in these appointments often work under extremely troubling conditions. However, the overwhelming majority of non-tenure-track appointments are teaching only or teaching intensive. Non-tenure-track faculty and graduate students teach the majority of classes at many institutions, commonly at shockingly low rates of pay.
This compensation scheme has turned the professoriate into an irrational economic choice, denying the overwhelming majority of individuals the opportunity to consider college teaching as a career. This form of economic discrimination is deeply unfair, both to teachers and to their students; institutions that serve the economically marginalized and the largest proportion of minority students, such as community colleges, typically employ the largest numbers of non-tenurable faculty.6 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.7 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 pay for their own computers, phones, and office supplies, and dip into their own wallets for journal subscriptions and travel to conferences to stay current in their fields. Some struggle to preserve academic freedom. However heroic, these individual acts are no substitute for professional working conditions.
We are at a tipping point. Campuses that overuse contingent appointments show higher levels of disengagement and disaffection among faculty, even those with more secure positions.8 We see a steadily shrinking minority, faculty with tenure, as increasingly unable to protect academic freedom, professional autonomy, 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.
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.9 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 faculty serving on contingent appointments, a fast-growing 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 parttime contingent positions are seeking and receiving provisions for greater stability of employment: longer appointment terms, 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 contract language, 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, and little opportunity for professional growth. These arrangements commonly involve minimal professional peer scrutiny in hiring, evaluation, and promotion.
The Committee on Contingency and the Profession believes that the best way to stabilize the faculty infrastructure is to bundle the employment and economic securities that activist faculty on contingent appointments are already winning for themselves with the rigorous 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 review 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 retain experienced, qualified, and effective faculty, as opposed to those that convert positions while leaving behind the faculty currently 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 contingent appointments to appointments 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 tenured or tenureeligible primarily on the basis of successful teaching.10 (Similarly, faculty serving on contingent appointments with research as the major component of their workload may become tenured or eligible for tenure primarily on the basis of successful research.) In the long run, however, a balance is desirable. Professional development and research activities support strong teaching, and a robust system of shared governance depends upon the participation of all faculty, so even teaching-intensive tenure-eligible positions should include service and appropriate forms of engagement in research or the scholarship of teaching.
In some instances faculty serving on a contingent basis 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 have research as a larger component of their appointments. 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. However, faculty themselves should not perpetuate the false impression that tenure was invented as a merit badge for research-intensive appointments.
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, that are eligible for tenure and benefits, with proportional expectations for service and professional development.11
The proliferation of contingent appointments will continue if institutions convert select appointments to the tenure track while continuing to hire off the tenure track elsewhere. We urge that conversion plans include discontinuance of any new off-track hiring, except where such hires are genuinely for special appointments of brief duration.
Tenure was conceived as a right rather than a privilege. As the 1940 Statement of Principles 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.
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 may convert the status of one group of faculty members while disregarding another group, or they may convert an existing pool of faculty to the tenure line at once, while putting in place no system for further regularization of faculty appointments or checks on further hiring of non-tenure-track professors. In addition, some of the institutions cited below have since undermined the effect of the conversion to tenure-line appointments. 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.
The following institutions have put into place plans to convert contingent appointments to the tenure track.
Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education
The collective bargaining contract between the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education and the Association of Pennsylvania State College and University Faculties (APSCUF) features separate contract provisions that permit the conversion of both individuals and positions to the tenure track. Some campuses and departments have made more use of this opportunity than others. At Indiana University of Pennsylvania, for instance, since 2000 there have been twenty conversions of persons and twenty-seven conversions of lines. But during the same period, the East Stroudsburg campus reports none. Some campuses have focused more on converting positions than persons, and there is some tension between these two opportunities. Where departments do not take advantage of the opportunity to convert persons, faculty serving contingently have sometimes been laid off just to stop the contract’s conversion clock. Most non-tenure-track faculty in the Pennsylvania state system are full-time employees, and under the terms of the collective agreement they are paid according to the same scale as tenure-track faculty and receive full benefits.
Features of the conversion provisions include the following:
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 free-standing faculty association.
Features of the conversion included the following:
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 yet- incomplete 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:
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:
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 faculty serving on contingent appointments at institutions across the country. The chapter has worked for several years to gather information about faculty serving on contingent appointments on campus, disseminate information about instructor tenure, and advance its conversion proposal. As of April 2010, the university’s faculty senate had passed a resolution to request that the administration initiate discussions to create a system of instructor tenure. The motion passed 33–14; a similar, but weaker motion had failed in 2009. Also recommended by the faculty government was a series of job security protections for faculty serving on contingent appointments and avenues to create traditional tenure lines for qualified contingent faculty. Features of the instructor-tenure proposal include the following:
More information is available under the tab “Instructor Tenure Project” at www.aaupcu.org.
Rutgers University
Members of the Rutgers University senate (a body composed of administrators, staff, students, and faculty), with assistance from the AAUP-affiliated 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 non-tenure-track full-time positions; part two called for conversion of contingent fulltime 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 tenure-track 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:
Many institutions have adopted (or faculty unions have bargained for) provisions that fall well short of tenure but that offer faculty serving on contingent appointments 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 faculty serving on contingent appointments 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-based” (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 not-for-profit system 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 3:1. 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 ACR 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.
Automatic mechanisms for reemployment rights:
Time-based and seniority-based rights:
Layoff and recall rights:
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, tenure-line faculty, full-time non-tenure-track “lecturers,” and part-time “adjunct faculty” are represented in collective bargaining by the American Federation of Teachersand AAUP-affiliated Professional Staff Congress. Faculty serving on contingent appointments 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_P....
The agreement includes provisions relating to job security in the following areas.
Automatic mechanisms for reemployment rights:
Time-based and seniority-based rights:
Layoff and recall rights:
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:
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.
Automatic mechanisms for reemployment rights:
Time-based and seniority-based rights:
Layoff and recall rights:
The agreement includes the following provisions relating to academic freedom:
The agreement includes the following provisions relating to citizenship and shared governance:
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 parttime 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: fulltime 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.
Automatic mechanisms for reemployment rights:
Time-based and seniority-based rights:
Layoff and 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:
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 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.
Automatic mechanisms for reemployment rights:
Time-based and seniority-based rights:
Layoff and recall rights:
The agreement includes the following provisions relating to academic freedom:
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 those at the Santa Cruz campus; lecturers and instructional faculty, or “non-senate faculty,” are unionized and are represented in collective bargaining by the American Federation of Teachers. The collective bargaining 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.
Automatic mechanisms for reemployment rights:
Time-based and seniority-based rights:
Layoff and recall rights:
The agreement includes the following provisions relating to academic freedom:
The agreement includes the following provisions relating to citizenship and shared governance:
In spite of the enhanced job security provided by the collective bargaining agreement, the position of non-senate faculty remains precarious, with no conversion to tenure eligibility. Lecturers may be laid off (reduced or separated) if courses are assigned to tenurestream faculty or graduate students teaching in the department of their major.
Vancouver Community College
While the term tenure is not used at Canada’s Vancouver Community College and other British Columbia public colleges, “regular” faculty positions are expected to last until retirement. All faculty at 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 B.C., which negotiates for its members on the system level. Notable provisions of job security have been established through both systemwide and local contracts. The collective bargaining agreements are available at www.fpse.ca/agreements/collective. The summary below pertains to Vancouver Community College; specifics of agreements at other federation institutions vary.
The agreement includes provisions relating to job security in the following areas.
Automatic mechanisms for reemployment rights:
Time-based and seniority-based rights:
Layoff and recall rights:
The collective bargaining agreement does not have explicit provisions on academic freedom.
The agreement includes the following provisions relating to citizenship and shared governance:
Mayra Besosa (Spanish), California State University, San Marcos
Marc Bousquet (English), Santa Clara University Co-chairs, Committee on Contingency and the Profession
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
The Subcommittee
1. 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 tenured or probationary for tenure (Statement on Procedural Standards in the Renewal or Nonrenewal of Faculty Appointments) AAUP, Policy Documents and Reports, 11th ed. [Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2015], 94–98; (2) the probationary period should not exceed seven years (1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure); (3) tenure can be granted at any professional rank (1970 Interpretive Comment 5 on the 1940 Statement); (4) tenure-line positions can be part time as well as full time (Regulation 13 of the Recommended Institutional Regulations on Academic Freedom and Tenure, Policy Documents and Reports, 79–90)); (5) faculty appointments, including part-time appointments in most cases, should incorporate all aspects of university life and the full range of faculty responsibilities (Contingent Appointments and the Academic Profession, ibid., 170–85); and (6) termination or nonrenewal of an appointment requires affordance of requisite academic due process (Recommended Institutional Regulations, ibid., 79–90). Back to text
2. The 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure characterizes 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.” That statement has now been endorsed by more than two hundred academic organizations. Back to text
3. As of 1970, roughly three-fourths of all faculty were in the tenure stream and 78 percent of all faculty were full-time; in 1969, only 3.2 percent of full-time appointments were nontenurable. Among all full-time appointments in 1969, teaching-intensive faculty (with nine or more hours a week of teaching) outnumbered research intensive faculty (with six or fewer hours a week of teaching) in a ratio of 1.5:1, accounting for 60 percent of the total number of full-time appointments. See Jack H. Schuster and Martin J. Finkelstein, The American Faculty: The Restructuring of Academic Work and Careers (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006), 41 (Table 3.2, “American Faculty by Employment Status, 1970–2003”); 174 (Table 6.1, “Non-Tenure-Eligible Faculty, 1969–1998,”); 97 (Table 4.4, “Ratio of High to Low Teaching Loads among Full-Time Faculty, 1969–1998”). Back to text
4. By 1998, among full-time faculty, the ratio of teaching- intensive appointments to research-intensive ones had risen significantly from 1.5:1 to 2:1, or from about 60 percent to 67 percent of the total. This was accomplished, as Schuster and Finklestein document, “largely by the resort to ‘teaching only’ appointments” (99). However, the percentage of all faculty who were in teaching-intensive appointments rose much more sharply, largely because of a massive increase in teaching-intensive part-time appointments (ibid.). Back to text
5. “Trends in Faculty Status, 1975–2007" (compiled by the AAUP). Back to text
6. American Faculty, 43-47. Back to text
7. Some recent and notable research articles on this topic are Ernst Benjamin, “How Over-Reliance upon Contingent Appointments Diminishes Faculty Involvement in Student Learning,” Peer Review 5:1 (2002): 4-10; Ronald Ehrenberg and Liang Zhang, “Do Tenured and Tenure-Track Faculty Matter?” Cornell Higher Education Research Institute Working Paper 53 (2004); Paul Umbach, “How Effective Are They? Exploring the Impact of Contingent Faculty on Undergraduate Education,” Review of Higher Education 30:2 (2007), 91–123; M. Kevin Eagan Jr. and Audrey J. Jaeger, “Closing the Gate: Part-Time Faculty Instruction in Gatekeeper Courses and First-Year Persistence,” Role of the Classroom in College Student Persistence: New Directions for Teaching and Learning 115 (2008); Audrey J. Jaeger, ”Contingent Faculty and Student Outcomes,” Academe 94:6 (November–December 2008), 42-43; Paul D. Umbach, “The Effects of Part-Time Faculty Appointments on Instructional Techniques and Commitment to Teaching” (2008), A. J. Jaeger and M. K. Eagan, “Effects of Exposure to Parttime Faculty on Associate’s Degree Completion,” Community College Review 36:3 (2009): 167–94; M. K. Eagan and A. J. Jaeger, “Part-Time Faculty at Community Colleges: Implications for Student Persistence and Transfer,” Research in Higher Education 50:2 (2009): 168–88. These newspaper articles provide a summary of current research: Karin Fischer, “Speaker Says Adjuncts May Harm Students,” Chronicle of Higher Education, November 18, 2005; Scott Jaschik, “Evaluating the Adjunct Impact,” Inside Higher Ed, November 6, 2008; David Moltz, “The Part-Time Impact,” Inside Higher Ed, November 16, 2009. For a different point of view, see Scott Jaschik, “What Adjunct Impact?” Inside Higher Ed, May 3, 2010. Back to text
8. P. Umbach and R. Wells, “Understanding the Individual and Institutional Factors That Affect Part-Time Community College Faculty Satisfaction” (2009), http://www.aftface.org/storage/face/documents/umbach%20and%20wells%20aer.... Back to text
9. See, for example, California AB 1725, http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/recordDetail?accno=ED425764, and ACR 73, http://info.sen.ca.gov/pub/01-02/bill/asm/ab_0051-0100/acr_73_bill_20010..., as well as the American Federation of Teachers' Faculty and College Excellence (FACE) campaign, http://www.aftface.org. Back to text
10. For part-time contingent faculty, the AAUP’s 2006 addition to its Recommended Institutional Regulations on Academic Freedom and Tenure (Regulation 13) urges that “[p]rior 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) non-reappointment. Those appointed with tenure shall be afforded the same procedural safeguards as full-time tenured faculty.” The 2003 statement Contingent Appointments and the Academic Profession recommends, “The experience and accomplishments of faculty members who have served in contingent positions at the institution should be credited in determining the appropriate length and character of a probationary period for tenure in the converted position.” Back to text
11. At least since the publication of 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