Non-tenure Track Faculty Members Research Articles

Perception and Conceptualization of the Land-Grant Mission at a Land-Grant Institution

While the three-part mission of the land-grant university has been a pivotal component of agriculture and natural resources in the U.S., the land-grant mission is not always well understood by all audiences, including faculty members who are the key deliverers of the land-grant mission. As such, it is important to understand how faculty members view the land-grant brand identity. A series of focus groups were conducted with tenure and non-tenure track faculty members at [university]. Faculty members’ perceptions of the university’s brand came out in four themes: overall description of the brand identity, connections to [City], university values, and increased emphasis on research. How faculty members conceptualized the land-grant mission presented two themes: aware but uninformed about the land-grant mission (subthemes: concerns about public awareness and stakeholder priorities, and unawareness of Extension) and having varying definitions of the land-grant mission (subthemes: land-grant is about the land, the land-grant mission is for more than agriculture, the land-grant is successful when serving the state, the land-grant mission is intended to improve society, and the land-grant mission is delivering equal opportunity education). Recommendations for universities included providing faculty members with a full understanding of the land-grant missions and ensuring students are taught about the land-grant mission. Future research was recommended to assess perceptions of faculty members at other land-grant universities and perceptions of non-faculty audiences such as students and external stakeholders. A quantitative survey was also recommended to provide a more generalizable view of faculty perceptions of the brand of land-grant universities.

Employee engagement: exploring higher education non-tenure track faculty members’ perceptions

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to study employee engagement in higher education by examining full-time non-tenure track faculty members’ perceptions at a North East US state public university.Design/methodology/approachThe authors used semi-structured face-to-face personal interviews with 11 non-tenure track full-time university faculty. Using a phenomenological approach, thematic analysis was conducted for employee interview data. The data was further refined through first and second cycle coding. The primary eight coded clusters were further reduced to three data clusters, each representing an evolving unit of meaning.FindingsThe analysis revealed three themes relating to how full-time non-tenure track faculty experience and understand engagement: required institutional engagement, perceived necessary engagement and relational collegial engagement.Originality/valueThe study adds to the limited research available on non-tenure track faculty members within higher education organization and their perceptions of engagement.

“Heavy Lifters of the University”: Non-Tenure Track Faculty Teaching Required Diversity Courses

Higher education institutions have adopted diversity course requirements while hiring more faculty members off the tenure track. Non-tenure track faculty members’ experiences teaching required diversity courses while navigating their precarious employment status has not been sufficiently explored. Addressing this need, the present study examined the experiences of non-tenure track instructors teaching diversity courses as part of general education programs at five colleges and how they understood their relationships to the diversity course requirement and the institution. Instructors perceived themselves as institutional “heavy lifters,” yet emphasized that their precarious status left them disconnected from the diversity requirement and the larger campus.

As Necessary as the Cleaning Crew: Experiences of Respect and Inclusion Among Full-Time Non-Tenure-Track Electrical Engineering Faculty at Research-Intensive Institutions

Contribution: This article explores issues of respect and inclusion among full-time non-tenure-track (NTT) electrical engineering faculty. Background: NTT faculty members are an important and growing part of electrical engineering programs in the USA. This article complements prior research on NTT faculty member career satisfaction and effectiveness, providing perspectives from the NTT faculty members themselves on their experiences with respect and inclusion. Research Question: The research question for this article is: How do NTT faculty members experience respect and inclusion in electrical engineering departmental cultures? Methodology: Using a qualitative design and semi-structured interview protocol, data were collected via 45-min interviews with 13 full-time NTT engineering faculty. The analysis used thematic coding. Findings: Most participants in this article work in departmental cultures that diminish their effectiveness. They are keenly aware of whether they feel respected and included in their department and these factors significantly affect their career satisfaction. Many of the participants have been specifically excluded from departmental discussion affecting their work, have suffered the effects of policies that are biased against them, and have been told directly or indirectly that their appointments are not valued by their administration or other faculty.

Building and Unbuilding a Comics Canon

The inaugural conference of the comics studies society, held in August 2018 at the University of Illinois, Urbana, was the most professionally diverse conference I've ever attended. There were presentations by tenure-track faculty members, non-tenuretrack faculty members, graduate students, and independent scholars; by people from four-year institutions, community colleges, and high schools; by literary critics, art historians, media scholars, research librarians, and working artists. Everywhere one felt the energy of a new field of study coming together, of institutionalization in a good sense: the gathering of past work to create a critical canon, the debate over methodology, the effort to establish priorities for moving forward as a discipline. he emotional palette that this event produced, at least for me, was an odd combination of excitement and melancholy—melancholy because, at a moment when traditional humanistic disciplines are having their support cut, it's hard to imagine a new ield getting anything like the resources or hires it needs to survive, let alone thrive.

Ignis Fatuus Effect of Faculty Category: Is the Tenure Versus Non-Tenure Debate Meaningful to Students’ Course Experiences?

The American professoriate is shifting its majority makeup from tenure track to non-tenure track faculty members. Less known, though, is what the implications of this shift are for students’ course experiences. We sought to examine the extent to which the teaching practices, with regard to academic rigor and cognitively responsive teaching, differ between faculty category using observational measures of teaching in the classroom. We found that broad categorizations of faculty may not be meaningful unless they are examined in particular contexts, such as discipline and class size.

Shared Governance among the new Majority: Non-Tenure Track Faculty Eligibility for Election to University Faculty Senates

Non-tenure track faculty members (NTTF) constitute what has been referred to by scholars as the new faculty majority. The growing numbers of NTTF have led to debates about the role they should play in shared governance. Currently, however, an overall lack of empirical knowledge exists regarding the status of their involvement in institutional governance. Using data from highest research activity doctoral universities, this study investigated current standards related to NTTF eligibility for election to institution-wide faculty senates. We also explored what these faculty governance standards and criteria reveal about the status and position of NTTF within the professoriate.

We Are In This Together: Sharing Expertise as a Way to Increase Publication Success

We Are In This Together: Sharing Expertise as a Way to Increase Publication Success

“I expect to be engaged as an equal”: collegiality expectations of full-time, non-tenure-track faculty members

Nationally, non-tenure-track faculty (NTTF) represent the new majority. Efforts to move the full-time NTTF role from expendable labor to sustainable professional position have led to improvements in policy and working conditions at many institutions. Still, the profession broadly has just begun to grapple with the implications of this shifting labor market on aspects of the profession traditionally reserved for tenure system faculty, such as collegiality. In this qualitative study we use Bess’s (High Educ Handb Theory Res 8:1–36, 1992) framework of structure, culture, and behavior to analyze the collegial expectations of 38 full-time, NTTF members. Participant accounts point to a desire for parity despite differentiation, and highlight the fundamental contradictions of a professional virtue that requires the independence of faculty for it to be fully expressed.

Non-Tenure Track Faculty and Learning Communities: Bridging the Divide to Enhance Teaching Quality

Institutions of higher education are increasingly hiring non-tenure track faculty members (NTTF) to help meet the demands of the institutional teaching mission. Research suggests NTTF experience inadequate working conditions that hinder performance and negatively impact the quality of undergraduate education. Given the growing number of NTTF responsible for teaching undergraduates, it is essential for institutions to help them be effective teachers. In this article we consider the use of cohort based faculty learning communities (FLCs) to engage and socialize NTTF, thereby enhancing their working conditions, performance, and the quality of undergraduate education. We discuss implications of using FLCs for the promotion of good practice and future research.

Using a Legal Lens to Better Understand and Frame Issues Shaping the Employment Environment of Non-Tenure Track Faculty Members

This article provides an overview and analysis of legal standards helping to shape the employment environment of non–tenure track faculty members. Familiarity with the significant differences in the types of employment arrangements for non–tenure track faculty and the resulting legal protections is of potential value to scholars seeking to better understand issues related to these faculty members. Many non–tenure track faculty members possess limited legal protections related to their employment, but a minority work under multiyear appointments with an expectation of renewal. The presence or absence of collective bargaining rights may also result in meaningful differences in the employment environment of non–tenure track faculty members. Additionally, the article examines the potential impact on non–tenure track faculty of legal uncertainty over First Amendment protection for individual academic freedom and other forms of professorial speech.

A Critical Appraisal of and Recommendations for Faculty Development

The 2009-2010 American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy (AACP) Council of Faculties Faculty Affairs Committee reviewed published literature assessing the scope and outcomes of faculty development for tenure and promotion. Relevant articles were identified via a PubMed search, review of pharmacy education journals, and identification of position papers from major healthcare professions academic organizations. While programs intended to enhance faculty development were described by some healthcare professions, relatively little specific to pharmacy has been published and none of the healthcare professions have adequately evaluated the impact of various faculty-development programs on associated outcomes.The paucity of published information strongly suggests a lack of outcomes-oriented faculty-development programs in colleges and schools of pharmacy. Substantial steps are required toward the development and scholarly evaluation of faculty-development programs. As these programs are developed and assessed, evaluations must encompass all faculty subgroups, including tenure- and nontenure track faculty members, volunteer faculty members, women, and underrepresented minorities. This paper proposes AACP, college and school, and department-level recommendations intended to ensure faculty success in achieving tenure and promotion.

The Impact of Student-Faculty Ratio on Pharmacy Faculty Scholarship

To determine the relationship and impact of student-faculty ratio on scholarship of pharmacy faculty members. The number and rank of faculty members, pharmacy program characteristics, and faculty productivity data were collected to determine the impact of student-faculty ratio on faculty scholarship. Faculty scholarship was not predicted by student-faculty ratio. Factors impacting positively on faculty productivity included National Institutes of Health funding; presence of clinical associate professors, instructors, and lecturers; and programs located in public universities. Faculty productivity is not related to the student-faculty ratio, wherein more faculty members and fewer students equates to increased scholarship. However, public universities may have different infrastructures which are associated with greater academic productivity compared to private institutions. Additionally, utilizing instructors and clinical or nontenure-track faculty members can significantly increase scholarship among faculty members.

Statement on Non-Tenure Track Faculty Members

Statement on Non-Tenure Track Faculty Members

Nontenure-Track Faculty and University Status

These words are echoed in the documents of many universities. Schools and colleges of pharmacy have hired many nontenure-track faculty members over the past decade mainly to meet the expanding needs for experiential instruction. The latest AACP Profile of Pharmacy Faculty reports that 40% of 3798 full-time faculty members at our schools and colleges are on a nontenure track. This documents a consistent yearly increase and doubling of nontenure-track faculty representation over the past decade, from 22% in 1991-1992. As schools and colleges plan further increases in class sizes, the number of nontenure-track faculty members in our institutions will further increase. The need for nontenure-track faculty members, particularly clinical faculty members, is apparent; however, many of our universities hold the contradictory stance of defending the importance of tenure while expanding the ranks of nontenure-track faculty members. The continuation of the tenure system along with the denial of its “protection” from “dismissal except for cause” for many of our faculty members is difficult to justify, but my purpose is not to debate the merits of tenure in our universities but to question the inequities that are fostered when differences between nontenureand tenure-tracks go beyond protection from dismissal. “Protection” may not be the critical issue since our organizations have formal systems for personnel review, appeals, and due process that protect all faculty members from dismissal without cause.

Upgrading Nontenure-track Pharmacy Practice Faculty from Second- to First-Class Citizens

Most new pharmacy practice faculty members are appointed on a nontenure track. Without nontenure-track pharmacy practice faculty, new and established schools cannot offer quality patient-oriented pharmaceutical education. Yet, many of these valuable academicians are treated as second-class citizens. Responsibility for upgrading the rights, responsibilities, and status of nontenure-track faculty rests with deans, chairs, nontenuretrack faculty members themselves, and tenure-track faculty.

Initiating minorities into the professoriate: One school's model

The shortage of minority faculty presence on college and university campuses has been a matter of some concern in recent years. The purpose of this article to describe one college's initiative to address this issue. The West Virginia Graduate College's Minority Faculty Fellowship Program was designed to recruit minority doctoral students who are at the dissertation stage of their program. Appointed as non-tenure track faculty members, fellows are provided with experiences that will help them acclimate to the professoriate. This article describes the program, highlights the institutional benefits, outlines the program's strengths and weaknesses, and makes recommendations for those interested in developing similar programs.