Abstract
Stereotypes regarding employees of the so-called millennial generation suggest that they like to change jobs frequently and prefer flexibility to long-term job stability. Library administrators who assume this stereotype to be true may believe (or assert) that faculty status and the opportunity to earn tenure are not as important to millennials as to older librarians. This belief may even lead administrators to eliminate or phase out faculty status for librarians at their institutions, on the assumption that younger librarians would find professional staff positions more appealing because they don't want to work at the same institution for the six or more years that it takes to earn tenure. This study, which specifically explores questions concerning faculty status and the opportunity to earn tenure, examines the job-status preferences of hundreds of new academic librarians at ARL-affiliated institutions and soon-to-be academic librarians currently enrolled in ALA-accredited master's programs in the United States and Canada. The themes that emerge from the results indicate that job security is an especially strong concern for this population of academic librarians and students, that faculty status and the opportunity to earn tenure are associated with perceived job security, and that that this population views academic librarians' work as being equal to that of “regular” faculty members. Moreover, this study finds that millennial status is not correlated with any particular view about faculty status and the opportunity to earn tenure.
Published Version
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