Non-tenure Track Faculty Research Articles

University of Massachusetts Medical School

University of Massachusetts Medical School

Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine and Cleveland Clinic

Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine and Cleveland Clinic

Hiring, Promoting, and Valuing Non-Tenure Track Faculty

Non-tenure track faculty comprise an increasing percentage of full time faculty employed by Americanuniversities. In 2001, the Association of American Universities (AAU) reported that 31% of full and part-timefaculty were non-tenure track. According to a 2006 report by the American Association ofUniversity Professors (AAUP), full-time non-tenure track faculty increased from 13% to 18.7% of totalfaculty between 1975-2003. These faculty often serve in most of the same roles as tenure track faculty,including teaching, research and service. At the same time, they are nearly always paid less, havefewer benefits, few opportunities for research leaves or sabbaticals, less job security, and little or noinvolvement in faculty governance (AAU, 2001; AFT, 2003; Curtis & Jacobe, 2006). In addition,especially in this very difficult economic climate, non-tenure track faculty positions are often the first tobe offered up during budget cuts. Curtis & Jacobe (2006) contend that these differences betweentenure and non-tenure track status limit academic freedom since many non-tenure track faculty fear thatpressing for greater benefits or job security may result in job loss.

Statement on Non-Tenure Track Faculty Members

Statement on Non-Tenure Track Faculty Members

Flushing out the Basements: The Status of Contingent Composition Faculty in Post-Katrina New Orleans—And What We Can Learn from It

In recent decades English Departments and the Humanities generally have increasingly relied on part-time, non-tenure track faculty hired semester by semester to teach multiple sections of first-year composition with low pay, few benefits. Administrators have rationalized this practice by arguing that institutions need contingent faculty to protect tenure-track faculty in times of financial difficulty and to manage fluctuating enrollments. When Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans and forced universities and community colleges to declare financial exigency or force majeur, contingent faculty were, as expected, the first to be let go. However, their dismissal did not protect tenured and tenure-track faculty from also being laid off. Moreover, without the support of contingent faculty, the English Department at Xavier University successfully managed to staff the teaching of composition in the first semesters following Katrina, a period of great uncertainty and fluctuating enrollments. This success shows that the employment of large numbers of part-time faculty can no longer be endorsed. Furthermore, faculty should strive to fully integrate their part-time colleagues into the academic community, and departmental administrators should follow the example of those departments who have been successful in turning part-time positions into full-time, tenure-track appointments.

Pursuing a faculty position

After watching fellow members of my pharmacy residency class accept pharmacist positions, I realized the wide variety of career options available to pharmacists, from clinical specialist positions with minimal teaching responsibilities to nontenure-track faculty positions with colleges of pharmacy

The Coming Accounting Crisis

The accounting profession is facing a potential crisis not only from the overall shortage of accounting faculty driven by smaller numbers of new faculty entering the profession as many existing faculty retire but also from changes that have been less well documented. This includes: (1) changes in attitude towards the roles of teaching, service and research and (2) changes in performance measurement and compensation. If not adequately addressed, many institutions may have difficulty staffing adequate sections of accounting courses. Implications could include an even greater increase in teaching by non-tenure track faculty, which could have significant implications for accreditation and potentially on the quality of accounting education

Fighting to be Fired (But Only with Just Cause): The Unionization of Nontenure-Track Faculty

In the last thirty years, the share of nontenure-track faculty appointments in higher education has increased dramatically. According to the American Association of University Professors, 96 percent of all new faculty appointments in U.S. colleges and universities in 1969 were tenure-track; by the 1990s, only half of new appointments were tenure-track, and only half of these positions were full-time.

RECRUITMENT, RETENTION, AND RETIREMENT: COMPENSATION AND EMPLOYMENT POLICIES FOR HIGHER EDUCATION

ABSTRACT Faculties are aging along with the rest of society. Low retirement rates and slow growth limit the number of new hiring opportunities in many institutions. Universities face a series of common challenges that will shape higher education in the 21st century. In order to maintain high quality faculties in the coming years, universities must develop compensation policies and employment practices that are appropriate for the new economic and demographic environment. This paper examines existing human resources (HR) policies and considers potential modifications that will enable institutions to recruit, retain, and retire faculty in the coming years. The analysis reviews the soaring cost of health insurance for active and retired faculty and how these plans are being amended. We also review the widespread adoption of phased retirement plans and the use of early retirement programs as components of HR policy. The increasing reliance on nontenure track faculty is also described. The analysis focuses on the challenges that universities face in the current economic and demographic conditions and the methods that administrators can adopt to fulfill their teaching and research missions. The paper presents the results from a national conference consisting of new research and intense discussion by scholars, administrators, policymakers, and HR consultants.

Tenure in transition: trends in basic science faculty appointment policies at U.S. medical schools.

This article-based on a 2002 survey of 125 U.S. allopathic medical schools, reviews of institutional policy documents, and interviews with medical school leaders-explores and analyzes three trends in appointment and tenure policies for basic science faculty at U.S. medical schools. First, the percentage of full-time, nontenure track basic science faculty has increased, from 12% in 1980 to 20% in 2000. More dramatically, by the late 1990s, the percentage of new basic science faculty hired on a nontenure track surpassed the percentage hired on a traditional tenure-track line. This development stems from the tendency of some schools to appoint faculty to nontenure-eligible "research scientists" faculty tracks, to hire junior faculty on 100% grant funding, and to allow nontenure-track faculty to switch to the tenure track as their research career progresses. The second trend is an alteration to the tenure financial guarantee. Historically, at most medical schools, it was assumed that tenure guaranteed total institutional salary for basic scientists. Schools have begun to redefine that commitment to less than full salary to protect against financial vulnerabilities and to provide a means to reduce faculty salaries, if warranted. The third trend is increased flexibility to pretenure policies. Schools have lengthened probationary periods, revised up-or-out provisions, instituted stopping-the-tenure-clock policies and less-than-full-time appointments, and permitted faculty to switch between the tenure and nontenure tracks. These policy modifications recognize the increased professional and personal demands on faculty time.

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.

The Effects of Part-Time Employment and Gender on Faculty Earnings and Satisfaction

Evidence from the NSOPF: 93 Introduction Part-time faculty have long played an important role U.S. postsecondary Jacobs (1998) relates that beginning the late Middle Ages, priests visited colleges and universities to pursue scholarly interests and to collaborate with other researchers. Following the Civil War, professionals began to teach part-time, providing expertise unavailable among full-time faculty. During the 1900s, institutions began to recruit temporary in residence artists and political figures. As Jacobs observes: These three categories--visiting, clinical, and in-residence--include some of the most creative and effective uses of part-time faculty. In every sense the arrangements are mutually beneficial. The institutions benefit from having practitioners who bring their knowledge and skill to the classrooms and laboratories, while the practitioners have access to resources and a forum which their work can be pursued and their ideas expressed. (1998, P. 11) Many part-time faculty labor under conditions consistent with the historical use of part-time faculty described by Jacobs (1998). Institutions hire others response to temporary enrollment increases or as replacements for full-time faculty who are on leave. These situations are typically considered to be appropriate uses of part-time faculty (American Association of University Professors, 1992; National Education Association, 1988). In recent decades, however, part-time faculty have increasingly been hired as permanent substitutes for full-time faculty (Jacobs, 1998; Langenberg, 1998; Leslie, 1998a, 1998b). Leslie (1998b) identifies increasing student enrollments at two-year colleges, driven large part by increases the number of two-year colleges, and the leveling off of state subsidies as reasons for the increasing use of part-time faculty. The percentage of part-time faculty has fluctuated considerably over time, declining from 35% of all faculty 1960-61 to 22% during the 1970s, then rising to 42% by 1992 (Bowen & Schuster, 1986; Kirshstein, Matheson, Jing, & Zimbler, 1997). Variations the use of part-time faculty are evident across institutional types and academic fields, although with few exceptions, the percentage of part-time faculty has increased for all institutional types and academic disciplines (Benjamin, 1998; Kirshstein et al., 1997). Although part-time faculty are often used ways that are beneficial both to institutions and to individual faculty members, their growing numbers represent a marked change the nature of higher education and the conditions of employment for faculty. While part-time faculty are often portrayed as being marginalized contingent workers who are poorly paid and comprise a lower caste of faculty (Barker 1998), research shows that this description fits some, but not all part-time faculty (Gappa & Leslie, 1993; Tuckman, 1978; Tuckman & Pickerill, 1988). Concern for those who do labor under exploitive conditions has brought criticism from several professional organizations (Chronicle of Higher Education, 1998; Farrell, 1992; Franklin, Laurence, & Denham, 1988; Leatherman, 1997; Ramusack, 1998). Indeed, the National Education Association (1988, p. 27) describes the misuse and abuse of part-time, temporary, and nontenure track faculty... [as] one of the most serious problems confronting American higher education. Because women are heavily concentrated part-time positions, the increasing use of part-time faculty also raises concerns about potential gender inequities employment opportunities and earnings (Kirshstein et al., 1997). Our research addresses a number of questions about preferences for part-time work, the relative earnings and satisfaction levels of part-time and full-time faculty, and the role that gender may play these aspects of academic employment. Specifically, we ask: (1) Are women more likely than men to prefer part-time faculty positions, and if so, does this difference account for the higher proportion of women part-time positions? …

Faculty Appointment Policies and Tracks in U.S. Dental Schools with Clinical or Research Emphases

The 1995 Institute of Medicine study of the future of dental education, Dental Education at the Crossroads: Challenges and Change, recommended that dental schools increase the use of nontenure-track positions in their employment of faculty. As part of a larger investigation of faculty appointment processes in U.S. dental schools, dental deans were queried about institutional policies governing faculty appointments and the use of tenure and nontenure faculty tracks. Response from the fifty-four U.S. schools exceeded 90 percent for each of two mailed questionnaires. Dental schools were classified according to one of two emphases: clinical or research. Deans classified faculty into one of seven appointment tracks. Nontenure-track appointments were less common in clinical-emphasis schools. Research-emphasis schools had a greater mean proportion of their faculties in both the nontenure research track (7.0 percent vs. 2.7 percent) and the nontenure clinical track (20.8 percent vs. 17.4 percent). Compared to faculty appointment data reported in 1990, there were more nontenure-track faculty in 81 percent of research-oriented schools and 55 percent of clinical-oriented schools. The most frequently cited reasons for more nontenure faculty in these thirty-three schools were greater administrative flexibility, better fulfillment of mission, and increased difficulty achieving tenure. This study showed the number of faculty holding nontenure-track appointments had increased since 1990, especially among research-emphasis dental schools.

Bigger, Smaller, Richer, Poorer: Trends in Agricultural Economics

AbstractThe 1996 American Agricultural Economics Association (AAEA) Employment Services Committee (ESC) survey results reveal that although enrollments are declining in both undergraduate and graduate programs, faculty numbers are increasing. These trends belie the fact that the increase in faculty has come among nontenure track faculty and that the number of tenure track assistant professors has declined markedly because of fewer hires, promotions, and attrition. One result is an aging tenure track faculty. Salaries among all faculty have been increasing at over 2% per year; however, a greater proportion of faculty is in the nontenure track at lower salaries. Key strategies to reverse declining enrollments are for departments to improve diversity, to gather information on placement of students at all levels, and especially to learn more about private‐industry placements at the undergraduate and masters levels and about foreign employment at the graduate level.

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.

Destination unknown: An exploratory study of full-time faculty off the tenure track

A variety of recent books and reports (Astin, Korn, and Dey 1991; Bowen and Schuster, 1986; Carnegie Foundation, 1989; Bowen and Sosa, 1989; Lynton and Elman, 1987; National Center for Education Statistics, 1990) has focused attention on the condition of the American academic profession. Several of these reports discuss the difficulties many institutions of higher education are likely to encounter as they try to maintain faculties qualified to meet the education demands of the twenty-first century. In response to staffing challenges, many higher education institutions with tenure systems have chosen to hire more non-tenure-track (NTT) professors. Many persons hired in this status work full-time and perform most of the same functions as other faculty members. To an outside observer, their role is often indistinguishable from that of a person hired on the tenure track (TT). However, the majority of non-tenuretrack appointments come with the explicit understanding that they are temporary. Eventually, the person hired in this capacity will be required to leave the institution and seek employment elsewhere, in or out of higher education. Colleges and universities derive substantial benefits from hiring non-tenuretrack faculty. Temporary professors enable an institution to preserve flexibility in a period of financial constraint; they help to stretch limited resources; and they make it easier for colteges to respond rapidly to shifting market forces and enrollment patterns. Non-tenure-track positions may be appealing to some academics as weil. Some individuals choose to remain off the tenure track for a variety of reasons. A non-tenure-track appointment may impose fewer demands for scholarship,

Part-Time Faculty In Political Science: Stepchildren of the Profession

Editor's Note: The National Education Association has recently issued a report, Report and Recommendations on Part-Time, Temporary and Nontenure Track Faculty Appointments. As reported in the Chronicle of Higher Education (March 9, 1988, p. A 13), the NEA recommends that Part-time instructors should be given the same salary and fringe benefits, prorated, as full time faculty members. They should be included in faculty governance procedures. They should be used only to teach specialized courses, replace absent professors, or address unexpected enrollment increases. And they should be hired on a full-time basis whenever possible. The full report is available from NEA, Office of Higher Education, 1201 16th Street, NW, Suite 320, Washington, DC 20036.

Faculty mobility in baccalaureate and higher degree nursing programs in Research I and II universities.

Over a 3-year period, 1979–82, in 30 public Research I and ResearchII university nursing schools, 1014 faculty left positions, for a turnover rate of 15.5 per cent. Of these, 594 were tenure track faculty, for a turnover rate of 12.7 per cent, and 420 were nontenure track faculty, for a turnover rate of 22.5 per cent. Fifty-five per cent of tenure track faculty who moved were under 40 years of age, while 71 per cent of nontenure track faculty who moved were under 40. Doctoral preparation appears to add stability, as 32 per cent of tenure track faculty were doctorally prepared but only 20 per cent of those who left the 30 programs were doctorally prepared. A higher percentage of Research I schools require the doctorate for promotion to associate professor and tenure than Research II schools. Thirty-one per cent of tenure track faculty held the rank of professor or associate professor, while 19 per cent of those who left held those ranks. Eighty-nine per cent of tenure track faculty who left had been employed less than 10 years, as compared with 98 per cent of the nontenure track faculty. A combination of family concerns accounted for the highest percentage of reasons for leaving.