One of the highest priorities of American Federation of Teachers (AFT) Higher Education over the past several years has been the shift away from a corps of full-time, tenure-track faculty to a contingent instructional workforce in American colleges and universities. This document focuses on one aspect of that shift: full-time faculty who are not…

New assistant or associate professors command more money than current professors with seniority or higher rank. This faculty-pay dilemma is known as "salary compression." Salary compression occurs when colleges are pressured by the job market to pay competitive salaries to attract scholars at lower ranks. (MLW)

A Canadian study examined the employment patterns of seven cohorts of faculty entering Canadian universities seven years after initial appointment. Results showed that a consistent and meaningful proportion of each cohort entered the tenure stream, accounting for half the faculty who remained in academe. Disadvantages to women and young academics…

Contingent faculty members spend a greater proportion of their overall time teaching, but the preliminary evidence suggests that these appointees are less accessible to students, bring less scholarly authority to their jobs, and are less integrated into the campus culture. The purpose of this chapter is to offer some reflections on the ascendancy…

Among personal memories for one minority instructor in literature is witnessing the civil rights movement, that defining period in which people of African descent broke out of the chrysalis of "Jim Crow" and transformed themselves from "colored" to "Black." In 1995, 1,000,000 Black men once again converged on the…

When a large group of nontenured part-time English department faculty were summarily dismissed, a significant segment of the English curriculum was left largely unattended, and other problems arose throughout the institution. (MSE)

Reflecting the national trend toward less costly undergraduate education, ranked college faculty at the University of South Florida (USF) have generated steadily decreasing portions of total university instructional full-time equivalence (FTE), going from 72% in 1983 to 57% in 1994, while less costly graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) and…

In early 1997, over 100 University of California, Hayward faculty members signed a statement of concern about the heavy use of part-time faculty as lecturers. Professors fear that increased use of lecturers threatens tenure, hurts quality of education, and reduces departmental continuity. Part-time faculty are generally treated as a different…

Analyzes scholarship on administrative leadership styles. Describes the writing program co-directorship model the author and a colleague developed at a Southern public university, and offers a critical analysis of both the possibilities and pitfalls of collaborative administration for untenured writing program administrators. Points out ways in…

At a time when some are critical of higher education's increasing reliance on part-time and adjunct faculty, many of those faculty do not seek tenure or full-time teaching positions. While they would like better pay and benefits, they prefer part-time work so they can pursue other jobs or interests and enjoy the teaching they do. (MSE)

Problems of new faculty acculturation at liberal arts colleges were studied by the Great Lakes Colleges Association (GLCA) with the help of a 40-month grant from the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE). Discussions with faculty members had revealed that many new faculty members were not comfortable at their institutions,…

Argues that successful recruitment of strong faculty depends on viewing information science as an academic program serving a variety of professional fields and valuing research as the equivalent of teaching. The implementation of these views within the School of Communication, Information and Library Studies, at Rutgers University is described.…

For those bright, young scholars who seek an idyllic life of secure full-time employment while engaging in the teaching and research of their choice, the cozy confines of higher education have always been seen as the Mecca. But according to experts, that scenario may be a fleeting reality. The growth of part-time and non-tenure track faculty since…

Just as student centered, collaborative classrooms give students the power to direct their own learning, so too a collaborative, partnership model for the writing staff leads to empowerment and professionalism. At Western Illinois University, involving temporary instructors in the process of curriculum development not only served to boost their…

Describes frictions inherent in the decision-making process at a California community college, where shared governance is both clearly defined and mandated. Discusses responsibility versus consultation and offers two successful examples (regarding the writing center and the basic writing program) in which faculty were involved in the decision and…