In summer 2003, two of the contributors to this article--Andrew Hershberger, a third-year assistant professor, and Dan Madigan, a faculty development director--met to talk about "balance" in the lives of junior faculty. How, for example, can faculty in the early stages of their careers better negotiate their roles as teachers and scholars at…

Focuses on the case of an untenured assistant professor being proposed for promotion to tenured associate professor. Offers three essential steps for the department to take in evaluating the candidate for reappointment or tenure and in recommending the candidate to other committees and the dean. (PRA)

Discusses Jill Carroll, an adjunct faculty member who thinks the key to success is forgetting about tenure and taking an entrepreneurial approach to getting work. She has written a manual for adjunct professors that encourages them to quit seeing themselves as victims and to deal with the system that exists. (EV)

In what Carroll College president called "fiscally driven decisions," four professors failed to win tenure because they did not match "institutional needs." The decision caused great public outcry since each of the four professors excelled in teaching, research and service. What angered people most is that the college planned…

Discusses obstacles to determining appropriate recognition and rewards for college faculty engaged in online research and teaching. Suggests that scepticism about the quality and effectiveness of digital research and instruction discourages young faculty members from using online media. Reports on a forum at Indiana University which addressed…

Examines the larger implications of the academic labor movement, especially in relation to democratic governance of higher education institutions. Discusses the American Association of University Professors, focusing on the rights of nontenured and part-time faculty and graduate student employees and noting how the Association works to end their…

The UMass Lilly Teaching Fellows early career faculty development program was rated a success at its 10-year mark by fellows who were asked in a survey to assess the program and its effects on their careers. In order not only to continue the program's success but improve upon it, the UMass Center for Teaching, guided by the survey, significantly…

Citing a decreased proportion of full-time tenured faculty at American colleges and steady increase of part-time adjunct and other nontenure-track faculty, this American Federation of Teachers' (AFT) document advocates professionalism of the manner in which part-time/adjunct faculty are employed, compensated, supported and treated in higher…

Details the case of a third-year assistant history professor at Yale University (Connecticut) who was denied reappointment. Raises issues such as the hiring by a department of its own Ph.D.'s, cronyism within departments and fields, denial of reappointment as punishment for criticizing powerful individuals, and the undue influence of a few…

Explores various impediments facing the academic labor movement, especially the resistance of tenured radicals, focusing on the experiences at Yale University. Discusses how graduate student organizing can jeopardize student-faculty relationships, affect chances for academic jobs, and create personal and professional tensions in many…

Women faculty will continue to lag behind males in achieving tenure as long as the ideal academic is defined as someone who takes no time off for childbearing. Suggests that the solution is to redefine the ideal worker in academia by offering proportional pay, benefits, and advancement for part-time work. Presents a model half-time tenure track…

The New Teacher Induction Program at Wilmington (Illinois) High School is intended to increase job satisfaction and to help new teachers avoid making mistakes. The major responsibility of the school board in the program is to form a policy to affirm the establishment and execution of the program. The superintendent reports program proceedings to…

Although the 1980s period of belt-tightening in higher education meant layoff of many tenured professors, financially troubled colleges are trimming part-time and nontenured faculty jobs and offering encouraging early retirement in the current period of retrenchment. However, the proportion of tenured faculty has shrunk as the overall size of the…

Describes the work of the Graduate, Adjunct, Lecturers: Organized Labor at the University of Maryland, noting that the bulk of graduate student struggles overall has occurred at state institutions. The group lobbied state legislators to include nontenured faculty in a bill granting collective bargaining to state employees. Highlights the…

Many faculty members were optimistic about their economic prospects for 2004-05. They saw signs of--or at least hope for--economic recovery all around and were ending a year in which overall average faculty salaries had grown by the smallest percentage in decades. Following the pattern of recent years, this annual report first examines the…