Tenure provides professors with a unique level of job security and utmost respect in the academy (Shea, 2002). Receiving tenure and progressing through the academic ranks are among the most visible and valued accomplishments for college and university faculty (Perna, 2001). Faculty who achieve excellence in teaching, research, and service readily…

Soft skills programs (SSPs) for staff are now an established part of staff learning and development in organisations. The lived experience of university staff attending these types of programmes has until now remained largely unexplored. As part of a professional doctorate in education, I used autoethnography to investigate the 'social world' of…

The status of teaching and learning is an issue those providing and supporting higher education grapple with. The UK Higher Education Academy offers accreditation aligned to the professional standards framework (PSF). The PSF contextualises the role of teaching and supporting learning, and offers a mechanism for individuals' commitment to be…

This study inquires whistle blowing intentions of alternatively certified prospective teachers, investigating their moral reasoning to blow the whistle. Specifically three hypotheses were tested: Overall ethical awareness of the alternatively certified prospective teachers is high; the participants will identify reasons related to philosophical…

Research shows that a lower proportion of women than men are in graduate level jobs, six months after leaving seven top UK universities. This paper presents new empirical evidence from a unique dataset on the significantly different attitudes and behaviours between Oxford men and women undergraduates that might explain why women are less likely to…

Academic work has traditionally been seen as relatively stress free. However, a growing number of studies have reported increases in occupational stress experienced by university researchers. In order to explain stress among this group, we build on a new perspective in occupational stress research: the so-called stress-as-offence-to-self…

Based on personal experiences garnered through years of adjunct instruction, the authors explore the challenges associated with working in academia without the guarantees of a long-term contract or tenure. Further, adjuncts are desperate to accept any position that is remunerative and this willingness undermines contract negotiation leverage of…

The main aim of this study was to examine the most relevant motivating factors (i.e. intrinsic, extrinsic and altruistic) influencing pre-service English school teachers to choose teaching as their profession. A small questionnaire was administered to 73 third-year student teachers at the University of the Balearic Islands (UIB). Results indicate…

The higher education sector in Ireland has undergone major changes under the effect of neoliberalism including severe budget cuts, transfer of research funding to external agencies, reduction in permanent contracts and increased reliance on part-time, temporary staff for teaching and research roles. The neoliberalisation of the university, as in…

This article documents the experiences of three early career academics trying to establish a network of early career academics (ECAs) in a middle-ranked university in Australia. The changing context of academia means that ECAs face considerable challenges in understanding and negotiating effective career paths. Some of the issues encountered…

Using a new panel data set comprising publication and appointment data for 889 German academic economists over a quarter of a century, we confirm the familiar hypothesis that publications are important for professorial appointments, but find only a small negative effect of appointments on subsequent research productivity, in particular if one…

The McDonaldization of higher education refers to the transformation of universities from knowledge generators to rational service organizations or "McUniversities". This is reflected in the growing dependence on a casualized academic workforce. The article explores the extent to which the McDonaldization thesis applies to universities…

Casual and sessional academic staff have traditionally been on the margins of institutional life despite the expansion of this cohort across the university sector. This paper details a project to address this lack of recognition through a workforce strategy to engage, support and effectively manage this often neglected cohort of the academic…

When professors in positions that offer no chance of earning tenure begin to stack the faculty, campus dynamics start to change. Growing numbers of adjuncts make themselves more visible. They push for roles in governance, better pay and working conditions, and recognition for work well done. And they do so at institutions where tenured faculty,…

Applying a multiple-mediator model, we examine the mediating effect of three types of career-specific parenting behaviors: lack of engagement, support, and interference, on the relationship between paternal job insecurity and youths' career self-efficacy. Data were collected from a sample of undergraduate students and their fathers. Results of the…