A Comparison Of Non Tenure Track Faculty Culture With Tenured Faculty Culture At The Departmental Level At A Four Year Public Institution

Today, non-tenure track faculty (NTTF) make up the majority of those teaching in higher education. Yet, very little is known about what constitutes the culture of the group. Most research focuses on the group as outsiders, or on the group's ability, or inability, to teach effectively. While there are many reasons a group or individual can feel like an outsider one possible reason is competing values. It is possible that NTTF and tenured faculty (TF) possess fundamentally different cultures. What this study discovered was that TF and NTTF at the institution studied did not possess fundamentally different cultures. In fact, the cultures of TF and NTTF both in the current and preferred state as measured by the OCAI, were nearly identical. Once again, this does not mean that NTTF studied do not feel like outsiders for reasons other than culture, but it does call into question the idea that cultural differences account for this perception, and self-perception. This led to a broader question of what variables do create significant differences in faculty culture. What was discovered was that gender, and to a lesser degree race, was significant in predicting differences in culture.

The nature of the higher education faculty workforce is radically and fundamentally changing from primarily full-time tenured faculty to non-tenure track faculty. This new faculty majority faces common challenges, including short-term contracts, limited support on campus, and lack of a professional career track. Embracing Non-Tenure Track Faculty documents real changes occurring on campuses to support this faculty group, unveiling the challenges and opportunities that occur when implementing new policies and practices. Non-tenure faculty contributors across a diverse range of universities and colleges explore the change process on their campuses to improve the work environment and increase the quality of learning. Kezar supplements these case studies by distilling trends and patterns from a national study of campuses that have successfully implemented policies to improve conditions for non-tenure track faculty. This invaluable research-based resource illustrates that there are multiple pathways to successfully implementing policy for non-tenure track faculty. Embracing Non-Tenure Track Faculty provides the tools to create a lasting culture change that will shape the work lives of all faculty and ultimately improve student learning. Outlining detailed strategies and approaches for providing equitable policies and practices for non-tenure track faculty on college campuses, this book is essential reading for both contingent faculty and higher education administrators.

The rapid success of for-profit colleges and universities (FPCUs) only recently has caught the attention of scholars in academe. The continuing expansion of the proprietary higher education sector has lead to fundamental questions regarding the purpose and function of FPCUs. As new technologies continue to emerge, education is becoming of increasing import to employees seeking to upgrade their skills and employers in search of individuals who possess the necessary expertise and training to help their organizations succeed. For-profit institutions challenge traditional notions of the academy--such as shared governance, tenure, and academic freedom--by utilizing administrative practices that more aptly apply to the corporate arena. Moreover, they exclusively employ non-tenure-track faculty members. This study provides a framework for understanding faculty roles and responsibilities at for profit colleges and universities. The author employs a series of in-depth interviews with 53 faculty members, from four for-profit institutions. Utilizing a cultural framework, the study explores the attitudes, beliefs, and perceptions of faculty work with particular consideration given to faculty member's non-tenure-track status, participation in decision-making activities, and academic freedom. The study examines the culture of the faculty work by asking how the profit-seeking nature of the institution affects their efforts inside and outside of the classroom. The author introduces a new component to the cultural framework that illustrates how the close ties between FPCUs and business and industry affect the nature of faculty work.

This book focuses on the status and work of full-time non-tenure-track faculty (NTTF) whose ranks are increasing as tenure track faculty (TTF) make up a smaller percentage of the professoriate. NTTF experience highly uneven and conditional access to collegiality, are often excluded from decision-making spaces, and receive limited respect from their TTF colleagues because of outdated notions that link perceived expertise almost exclusively to scholarship. The result is often a sub-class of faculty marginalized in their departments, which reduces the inclusion of diverse voices in academic governance, professional relationships, and student learning. Given these implications, the authors ask, how can departments, institutions, and the profession do more to engage NTTF as full and active colleagues? The limited access of NTTF to the rights and responsibilities of collegiality harms institutional success in several ways. Given the full-time nature of their work and the heavy (but not exclusive) focus on instruction, NTTF are likely to be on campus as much or more than TTF, and thus be engaged with students, colleagues, and administrators in ways that more closely resemble TTF than part-time faculty. Their limited access to collegial spaces makes it harder for them to do their jobs by restricting access to information and input into decision-making. Moreover, since the greatest growth among women faculty and faculty of color is in NTTF roles, their exclusion from collegiality and decision-making negates the very diversity the profession claims to seek. Finally, colleges and universities face financial, curricular, and organizational challenges which require broad input, although the burden of governance is falling on fewer shoulders as the percentage of TTF declines and NTTF are excluded from these spaces.Ultimately, NTTF must be engaged as partners and colleagues in supporting institutional health. This book – the fruit of extensive data collection at two institutions over a five-year period – describes lessons learned from and benefits experienced by departments that have successfully supported and engaged NTTF as colleagues. Drawing on their research data and analysis of “healthy” departments that integrate NTTF, the authors identify the practices, policies, and approaches that support NTTF inclusion, shape a more positive workplace environment, improve morale, satisfaction, and commitment, and fully leverage the expertise of NTTF and the valuable human capital they represent. The authors argue that this more inclusive collegiality improves governance, supports institutional success, and serves diverse institutional missions. Though primarily addressed to institutional leaders, department chairs, tenure-line faculty, and leaders in the academic profession, it is hoped that the findings will be useful to NTTF who are engaged as advocates for and partners in the change process required to address the evolving structure of the university faculty.

The definitive career guide for grad students, adjuncts, post-docs and anyone else eager to get tenure or turn their Ph.D. into their ideal job Each year tens of thousands of students will, after years of hard work and enormous amounts of money, earn their Ph.D. And each year only a small percentage of them will land a job that justifies and rewards their investment. For every comfortably tenured professor or well-paid former academic, there are countless underpaid and overworked adjuncts, and many more who simply give up in frustration. Those who do make it share an important asset that separates them from the pack: they have a plan. They understand exactly what they need to do to set themselves up for success. They know what really moves the needle in academic job searches, how to avoid the all-too-common mistakes that sink so many of their peers, and how to decide when to point their Ph.D. toward other, non-academic options. Karen Kelsky has made it her mission to help readers join the select few who get the most out of their Ph.D. As a former tenured professor and department head who oversaw numerous academic job searches, she knows from experience exactly what gets an academic applicant a job. And as the creator of the popular and widely respected advice site The Professor is In, she has helped countless Ph.D.’s turn themselves into stronger applicants and land their dream careers. Now, for the first time ever, Karen has poured all her best advice into a single handy guide that addresses the most important issues facing any Ph.D., including: -When, where, and what to publish -Writing a foolproof grant application -Cultivating references and crafting the perfect CV -Acing the job talk and campus interview -Avoiding the adjunct trap -Making the leap to nonacademic work, when the time is right The Professor Is In addresses all of these issues, and many more.

The growing use of full-time non-tenure-track faculty represents a controversial change in the pattern of staffing colleges and universities. Teaching without Tenure provides the first comprehensive examination of this important phenomenon. Examining the issue from the perspectives of both institutions and faculty members, Roger G. Baldwin and Jay L. Chronister offer a systematic look at who non-tenure-track faculty are, the roles they play in higher education, and the policies that control the terms and conditions of their employment. Teaching without Tenure utilizes findings from a national study of full-time non-tenure-track faculty, including survey data, policy analysis findings, and information gathered from site visits with faculty and administrators at a cross-section of four-year colleges and universities across the United States. This timely study emerges in an environment in which many constituents of higher education have begun to question the feasibility of retaining the academic tenure system in its present form. Baldwin and Chronister discuss the internal and external factors influencing an institution's decision to hire non-tenure-track faculty and make recommendations for policies and practices that can support the work and career development of faculty in these positions. Designed to assist faculty, academic leaders, and institutions, Teaching without Tenure examines developments challenging the status quo in the American academic profession and offers guidance as higher education moves into an uncertain future.

Earning tenure is a prestigious, professional achievement for faculty in higher education. The number of tenured faculty, open tenure positions, and newly created tenure positions within higher-education has declined since the 1970's. A reduction in governmental funding to higher education since the Great Recession of 2008 caused higher education tuition to rise in the decade since and put further constraints on institutions' ability to pay the salaries of tenured and tenure-track professors. Because of the downturn, higher education institutions frequently hired contingent, non-tenured faculty to fill the departmental void of the depleted tenured faculty. Institutions in some states have completely eliminated the option of tenure for faculty. One state responded to the rising costs of education by creating a new academic institution (identified here as Mosaic University), which is a four-year, state university that does not offer tenure. Research suggests similar institutions may continue to open, but currently, there is no information regarding why faculty cease the search for tenured positions to work at a non-tenured institution. The study uses qualitative methods to answer the research question, why do credentialed faculty choose to take a position at a four-year, non-tenure granting, state university? The qualitative research is designed as an explanatory case study and uses semi-structured interviews with full-time faculty of Mosaic University. The researcher analyzed the response data using the descriptive coding method to identify themes related to faculty experiences which affected their choice to accept a position at a four-year, non-tenure granting, state university. Participants identified previous socialization experiences which instilled in them a passion for teaching and service to academic institutions as a professor, the lack of other job opportunities, and the opportunity to create the organizational foundations of the institution, as reasons to accept a position at a four-year, non-tenure granting university. The results of the study were used to craft recommendations for the policy makers of future, newly created, non-tenure institutions, which include suggestions to implement consistent contract renewal practices, establish structured plans for development of faculty within the institution, market the opportunity to work in a flat employment system, and develop a mentorship program between experienced and new faculty.

Enhancing promotions, tenure and beyond - cover title.

Why the Gig Academy is the dominant organizational form within the higher education economy—and its troubling implications for faculty, students, and the future of college education. Over the past two decades, higher education employment has undergone a radical transformation with faculty becoming contingent, staff being outsourced, and postdocs and graduate students becoming a larger share of the workforce. For example, the faculty has shifted from one composed mostly of tenure-track, full-time employees to one made up of contingent, part-time teachers. Non-tenure-track instructors now make up 70 percent of college faculty. Their pay for teaching eight courses averages $22,400 a year—less than the annual salary of most fast-food workers. In The Gig Academy, Adrianna Kezar, Tom DePaola, and Daniel T. Scott assess the impact of this disturbing workforce development. Providing an overarching framework that takes the concept of the gig economy and applies it to the university workforce, this book scrutinizes labor restructuring across both academic and nonacademic spheres. By synthesizing these employment trends, the book reveals the magnitude of the problem for individual workers across all institutional types and job categories while illustrating the damaging effects of these changes on student outcomes, campus community, and institutional effectiveness. A pointed critique of contemporary neoliberalism, the book also includes an analysis of the growing divide between employees and administrators. The authors conclude by examining the strengthening state of unionization among university workers. Advocating a collectivist, action-oriented vision for reversing the tide of exploitation, Kezar, DePaola, and Scott urge readers to use the book as a tool to interrogate the state of working relations on their own campuses and fight for a system that is run democratically for the benefit of all. Ultimately, The Gig Academy is a call to arms, one that encourages non-tenure-track faculty, staff, postdocs, graduate students, and administrative and tenure-track allies to unite in a common struggle against the neoliberal Gig Academy.