1 Contingent Faculty in a Tenure Track World
Center for the Education of Women, University of Michigan May 2010
Jean Waltman PhD, Carol Hollenshead, Louise August PhD Jeanne Miller, Inger Bergom
For several years, we at the University of Michigan’s Center for the Education of Women have studied the experiences of those off the tenure track. With the support of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, we previously conducted an extensive institutional-level survey (Center for the Education of Women, 2007, www.cew.umich.edu/research/respub.html ).
For the current Sloan-funded study, Contingent Faculty in a Tenure Track World, CEW researchers held focus groups with full- and part-time non-tenure track (NTT) faculty at twelve research universities across the country. We amassed considerable data about the lives of NTT faculty, and our findings offer insight into a number of questions, including
“What can we do to optimize the NTT career path for everyone: institutions,
administrators, tenure-track colleagues, students, and the NTT faculty themselves?”
In order to answer these questions, we must understand what NTT faculty members seek in their positions and work environments. Nine themes emerged from our conversations:
job security, supportive policies and practices, love of teaching, flexibility, respect and inclusion, professional growth opportunities, importance of the chair, unionization, and the specific needs of research faculty.
METHODOLOGY/DESCRIPTIONOFTHESTUDY
In designing this study, we proposed to learn from NTT faculty themselves about their employment conditions and their experiences; and to identify how, through policy and practice, their institutions promote or impede their career success and satisfaction.
We chose the twelve universities for this qualitative study based on three main factors.
First, we included only research universities so that the variable of institution type remained constant and variation in data across institutions would not be attributable to institution type. Second, the investigators wanted a relatively diverse group of
institutions, so type, size, and geographic location were considered to ensure variation between public and private, and rural and metropolitan, for example. Third, the selection was based on convenience. Investigators had established professional connections with administrators at a number of institutions, which made the process of getting permission to conduct the focus groups easier.
Our study targets two specific subsets of NTT faculty:
(1) Instructional faculty—Because much of the nation’s undergraduate instruction is provided by NTT faculty, their roles in U.S. colleges and universities and the conditions of their work are important within and outside higher education institutions.
2 (2) Research faculty – Although less likely to affect student outcomes, this group of
faculty engage in one of the most important aspects of academic endeavor, the creation and dissemination of knowledge.
For each university, investigators solicited lists of NTT faculty from an administrator, usually in the Provost’s office, the division of institutional research, or the office of academic human resources. NTT faculty are given various titles across institutions, and often even within an institution. We drew from the lists that the institutions provided; the decision about whom to include in these lists (that is, which titles represented full- and part-time “non-tenure track faculty”) was left to the institutions. When lists were too large to invite everyone, we concentrated on core disciplines in the humanities, sciences and social sciences that tend to rely heavily on NTT faculty. We excluded both clinical faculty and, when possible, adjunct faculty who had careers outside academia and taught only an occasional class in their fields. In other words, we were most interested in the experiences of non-tenure track faculty, whether full or part time, for whom their academic jobs were their primary or only occupations. We recruited focus group participants via email.
In total, we conducted 24 ninety-minute focus groups with a total of 343 full- and part- time NTT instructional and research faculty. Occasionally, NTT faculty who were invited to participate but were not able to attend emailed their responses to focus group prompt questions. These written responses were also included in the data analysis.
On most campuses, we conducted three ninety-minute focus groups—one each for research faculty, full-time instructional faculty, and part-time instructional faculty.
Participation by part-time instructional faculty was lower than the national averages – both because we minimized the inclusion of part-time faculty whose primarily careers were outside academia and because many part-time faculty declined to participate, citing other teaching positions at other schools, responsibilities for dependents, etc. Thus, while we tried to create separate groups, in some cases we had to combine full- and part- time faculty in the focus groups for instructional faculty.
We audio-taped the focus group discussions, transcribed, and analyzed them, using NVivo software to develop common themes.
THE SAMPLE
The 343 non-tenure track faculty in our study bring a range of backgrounds to their positions and undertake a variety of duties and responsibilities. Some assumed NTT positions to accommodate their families and partners; some were “spousal hires.” A number of NTT faculty had retired from long-time careers or had left other careers because they saw teaching as more enjoyable or meaningful. Others had been graduates or post-doctoral fellows before they became NTT faculty on the same campus. Most of the NTT instructional faculty with whom we spoke were hired primarily to teach. In
3 addition to teaching, however, a number of them have administrative roles, such as
program directors and academic advisors.
The following tables provide an overview of demographic information for our sample.
General Demographics
Percentage #
Instructional 64% 220
Researcher 36% 123
Total 100% 343
Full Time 80%
Female 55%
White 88%
Age (range 26 – 68 years) 48 yrs avg Years as NTT (1-35 years) 9 yrs avg
Outside employment 21%
Partner/spouse at U 28%
Minor children in the household 62%
PT vs. FT mix (The percentage of part-time NTTF in our sample smaller than the national average, for the reasons we mention above)
Instructor Researcher Total
Part-time 26% 8% 20%
Full-time 74% 92% 80%
Total 100% 100% 100%
4 Pay Range (80% response rate on salary questions)
FT – Instructional PT – Instructional
N Minimum Maximum Mean N Minimum Maximum Mean
Comp per course 1 5,300 5,300 5,300 28 2,400 35,000 6,844
Comp per term 4 3,500 10,000 5,625 5 4,500 16,000 9,900
Comp per year 146 26,000 120,000 56,873 19 12,000 76,000 37,957
FT – Research PT – Research
N Minimum Maximum Mean N Minimum Maximum Mean
Comp per year 102 38,000 150,000 74,940 9 18,000 135,000 70,222
Pay Range by Gender (Comparing the FT and Per Year Salaries)
Average salary Women Men Women earn…
Instructional 52,600 63,100 83¢
Research 72,600 76,800 94¢
5 Discipline
84% of the Researchers are in STEM fields; instructional faculty are fairly evenly distributed.
Male Female
Humanities 25% 75%
Social Sciences 40% 60%
STEM disciplines 54% 46%
Term of Employment
Part-time Full-time
By the term 34% 2%
By the year 40% 40%
Multi year period 26% 58%
100% 100%
6 Courses taught per term – instructional faculty
Women 0-6, average 2.56 Men 0-5, average 2.03
KEY FINDINGS
CEW researchers identified nine themes, described below, as recurring across all or most of the focus groups, regardless of institution. We also include representative comments from focus group participants to illustrate each theme. For a more extended discussion, see “Satisfaction and Discontent: Voices of Non-Tenure-Track Faculty” in On Campus with Women 37:3 (Winter, 2009)
http://www.aacu.org/ocww/volume37_3/feature.cfm?section=2
Lack of security. NTT faculty cited such issues as term-by-term employment, short notice of renewal or non-renewal, over-reliance on student evaluations, and a perceived need to take on administrative tasks to become “indispensible.”
“There’s no path. There’s no review. Nobody talks to me. No contract.”
“I look at what a tenure track position entails, and I look at what my job is. And there is some difference, but there’s not a lot….And I think about having to pick up my family and move from a place that they’ve settled down in and really like, and all of that for basically [a lack of] security. I’d like to see not even a tenure position, but just the opportunity to get the University to say ‘We like you. We’ll keep you on.’ And that opportunity isn’t afforded to non-tenure faculty.”
Supportive policies and practices. NTT faculty spoke of the need for specific, consistent and transparent policies related to the terms of their employment (job titles, career
ladders, longer contracts—e.g. 3 years or more—and relevant evaluation procedures). At institutions with campus-wide formalized policies that establish the criteria for
advancement up a non-tenure track ladder and progressively more lengthy contracts, the NTT faculty were more likely to feel a sense of belonging and job security. (Sample best practice policies for such terms of employment are available at The National
Clearinghouse on Academic Worklife: www.academicworklife.org).
“We’ve been trying in the College to get comparison figures [about NTT faculty on campus]. That’s really hard…because of the different titles that people have
7 and that have different meanings. I understand in the University there are 38 different titles [for NTT faculty].”
“[When I first came here] I remember trying to figure out exactly what is this position? I remember going to the Internet….Surely they are going to have a web page for Lecturer track that lays out all that information…that speaks to who we are as a body of people on this campus—and there’s nothing. I couldn’t find anything that spoke to that position, to the Lecturer track. There was nothing on there. There were no guidelines, nothing.”
Love of teaching. NTT faculty often said they “love this job” because they love
teaching, enjoy working with students and want to make a difference in students’ lives.
They often cited teaching as a reason for choosing NTT work over tenure track positions.
“[The students are] interesting for me. I just love them. They’re great. Some are great. That’s why I do it. Research is more fun for me, but it, teaching is more rewarding. Being able to positively impact their lives is great.”
“What I’m doing is meaningful, to me. I’m teaching people to write. I find writing to be an essential intellectual skill that will benefit students in many ways, in their other classes, in their professions, etc. And I’m also helping other people to teach, and helping to prepare them for their careers in the future. And I think I find this work more meaningful in some ways than I would as someone with a tenure track position who is primarily focused on my own research.”\
“The students here are great. They really are smart, they’re passionate….Every time I step in the classroom I’m reminded of why I’m here.”
Flexibility and personal life. NTT faculty (male and female) value their ability to balance work and family responsibilities. Similarly, they value their freedom from the demands of the tenure process, both the lower levels of stress and their ability to focus on teaching.
“I’ve been approached informally by members of our faculty to go tenure track, and I just said ‘Forget it.’ I don’t need that stress.”
“I think in my situation sometimes I’m better able to see the forest for the trees. I do see some of the tenure- track faculty, and they are so down in trenches, and researching the nitty, nitty, nitty, nitty gritty. And I’m able to take a step back.
My interest is pedagogy, and I teach in a learning community environment. I’m interested in spreading the message of learning communities and different ways of teaching and learning, and relating to students. And I feel like, in my position, because I don’t have so many strings, and I’m not tied up in meetings, and all those other obligations, that I do have the time, believe it or not, to think more creatively, and to step back and take some risks, and do some things I don’t believe that I would feel like I could do in a tenure track position.”
8
“We keep focusing on different things as being very negative, whether it’s the salaries, or the inequities, or whatever. But we’re all choosing to do this. So, for every one of us, the benefits are outweighing the costs. And we’re not looking at those benefits. For me, I wouldn’t give this up. It’s ideal. I can work part time. I can be there for my kids. I can do most of my work at 3 o’clock in the morning and get it done and be there for my children. There are not that many jobs that would allow me to do that. So while I may be concerned about job security and the timing of my 3-year contract, or salary, whatever, overall, it’s a positive experience for me. Overall it’s not something that I find troubling. Quite the opposite, I’m grateful to have the job that I have and to be able to work the way I can work.
Respect and inclusion. Expressed negatively, this includes a perceived lack of respect from colleagues as well as from Chairs and Deans; exclusion from meetings, voting, curriculum design, doctoral committee work, etc. Expressed positively, it refers to Chairs or colleagues treating contingent faculty as equals.
“I feel supported by the people in my own program but outside of that small circle, I do not feel valued or respected-it is not outright disregard, it is just prevalent in the organization-I often am excluded (by accident) in meetings, attendance in discussions and have little voice outside of my own program- given the fact that I was very successful in my career prior to coming to the university setting and understanding how critical it is to involve others, this is especially disturbing.”
“I feel very much a part of my department. I’m engaged in a seminar series and ask questions. And students come to me and ask for help, and I feel that I can speak up in faculty meetings, and I don’t have any sense that I’m different.”
Professional growth opportunities. NTT faculty often expressed the desire for more opportunities for professional growth. Departmental and university support for NTT faculty’s growth could take many forms: funding to present at conferences, release time from teaching to write and research, and eligibility for university awards and grants.
“We do have opportunities for promotion after 6 years (within the non tenure structure) and there are funds for professional development, which I am very thankful for.”
“Some workshops are presented and I do have a travel budget but the
opportunities are somewhat limited. I have a number of opportunities to grow professionally. I am a member of several professional organizations and serve on the board of one. The only limitations are of my own choosing. My college is supportive of anything I wish to pursue as long as I do not neglect my duties here.”
“I do still continue to do research; however, finding time to work is very hard.
9 Spending more time on making connections [with other faculty] and doing more research will help me grow professionally and will also inform my teaching. I would like the opportunity to take a sabbatical. Lecturers need to time to regroup and think just as much as other faculty.”
Importance of Chair. NTT faculty believe that the degree of respect and job security they enjoy are highly dependent on their Chairs, both directly through policies and practices and indirectly by setting a tone for the department. Even where policies are in place, faculty expressed concern that implementation differs with different chairs.
“I currently have a Department Chair who is extremely considerate. He’s this way toward everyone. But he includes me, just as much as a full professor. . .asks me what I would like to do and how I would like to do it. If I say I’d really like to teach this course, he does what he can to make it happen. But, when he was on leave, we had a temporary Chair, and for that person I felt very much more like a cog in the wheel. ‘Do what we need, and this is that.’ It shouldn’t be that [my treatment] depends on the chance of who is Chair at the moment.”
“I just want to say that I feel seriously disrespected by the College and by the University as a whole. The fact that we’re all so vulnerable to who is Chair is just evidence that above the level of Chair, nobody cares who’s Chair. Or the criteria they have for an effective Chair doesn’t include a sort of respect for me, respect for Lecturers.”
Unionization. While unionized NTT faculty still expressed concerns about the union and their job situations, they also often referred to the unions as a means of addressing
concerns, as well as a force in policy development.
“I’m very positive about the Union. It’s saved my skin, I think, a couple of times.
There were certain intervals when the University, like it is now, is facing a terrible budget crisis where I actually thought they were just going to fold our unit up and pack us away. I think the Union has been a force for longevity in my career. I’ve already described how I’ve got a job that I really enjoy doing, but I really don’t have any statutory or contractual safety. And the Union has been a force very much for the good, in terms of longevity of employment.”
Specific concerns of NTT research faculty. The roles and concerns NTT research faculty differed in some instances from those of instructional NTT faculty. Researchers may be hired for funded projects or may be long-term managers of labs or equipment;
they occasionally described one of their key roles to be mentoring graduate students (formally or informally). They derive satisfaction from being able to conduct their own scientific inquiries on well-resourced campuses. However, often they must generate their own funding, may have little bridge funding between grants, feel isolated from each other and from other campus groups, and may not be treated by their institutions as equal faculty or permanent employees. Confusion regarding policies, titles, and career ladders was also cited by several researchers.
10 For more on researchers specifically, see “Academic Researchers Speak” in the
March/April 2010 issue of Change. http://www.changemag.org/
RECOMMENDATIONS
Based upon data from our NTT faculty focus groups, as well as upon extensive research about contingent faculty on campuses across the country, we suggest that institutions seeking to improve the working conditions and career satisfaction of their non-tenure track faculty consider the following recommendations:
• Create institution-wide policies for NTT faculty members’ promotion on a career ladder, complete with appropriate titles, salary increases, and progressively longer contracts
• Maintain high standard criteria for hiring both full- and part-time NTT faculty
• Involve NTT faculty in teaching evaluation procedures
• Include NTT faculty in departmental and institutional-level governance and in the social life of their departments
• Make transparent and public all policies and other information about and for NTT faculty, for example on a special website or in a written handbook
• Offer career development opportunities, including options to take on administrative duties; academic leaves for long-time NTT faculty
• Offer compensation for added responsibilities, i.e., increased pay, course releases
• Expanded eligibility for teaching awards and other forms of recognition
• Provide on-going chair training about NTT faculty issues and about the importance of continuity from one chair to the next
• Expand benefit provisions that give NTT faculty coverage during times of transition and between terms of employment
• For NTT research faculty, increased autonomy and responsibility and more control over grant funds
• Provide appropriate office space, equipment, and other forms of support
