The COVID-19 pandemic upended nearly every aspect of academia, leading colleges and universities to reexamine how they instruct their students and how they reward their faculty. But the pandemic was not the only disruptive event that took place in 2020. Colleges and universities have been forced to address issues related to productivity, teaching,…

This study addresses methodological problems surrounding existing research on exposure to contingent instructors and student outcomes. By applying non-aggregated and aggregated measures of exposure to contingent instructors to the same data, this analysis demonstrates that effects of commonly used measures of exposure to contingent instructors…

The freshmen writing faculty at DePaul University (Illinois) was comprised of 10 female non-tenure track instructors in the spring term of 1990. The core program for freshmen taking the introductory writing course pairs the English course with a history course, thus combining a study of civilization with a study of writing and rhetoric, and…

This study examined research productivity over the course of the professional career and its relationship with tenure. It hypothesized that the rate of scholarly productivity does not decrease after tenure, and further, that the amount of activity of older faculty is comparable to new faculty. Data were collected from the curriculum vitae of…

This scripted dialogue is a fully documented story about the history and conditions of one group of post-secondary teachers of English. The narrative focuses on the proposal of this group of "permanent" temporary writing instructors from Western Illinois University to convince administrators to change their status to tenure track by…

Examines two problems with the promotion system fostered by the AAUP and certain universities: (1) the policies as they deal with junior faculty; and (2) the kind of colleague the policies have produced. (NH)

This study used available data to develop an initial profile of non-tenure-track (NTT) faculty in comparison to their non-tenured but tenure track (TT) counterparts and to develop questions to guide future study of this group. Using data from a 1989 survey of the professorate conducted by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching,…

Many colleges and universities use "adjunct faculty" as a means to address increasingly unpredictable student populations, questionable funding formulas, and tightened education budgets. Initial evidence suggests, however, that the practice of using them contains flaws. This research was conducted to determine existing circumstances of adjunct…

Argues that tenured English teachers at small liberal arts colleges want several things from prospective new faculty members, including the capacity to share authority among equals, and the ability to give up some radical intellectual independence in order to collaborate (not compromise or capitulate) professionally. (RS)

This study identified the likelihood of new, tenure-track assistant professor obtaining tenure at a large multicampus university (the University of Missouri system). Logistic regression was used to determine whether certain faculty characteristics help to explain who received tenure. The tenure rate was based on the percentage of new assistant…

A survey examined the attitudes of lecturers in the English department at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington in an attempt to better define the role of the lecturer in the department. Twelve responses were received from 13 full and part-time lecturers. Results indicated that: (1) most favored a committee appointed by the chair using…

Over the last sixteen years, part-time teachers have become the coolies, or the burden bearers of the academic community. Used mostly to teach lower-level basic classes, they have increased in number from 36,420 in l968 to 330,000 in l985. Research about part timers began in the late l970s with Howard Tuckman, who tried to find systematic and…

In a personal narrative reflecting on 27 years of teaching, an adjunct faculty member realizes that she knows quite a bit firsthand about the adjunct. Judith Gappa and David Leslie, in their 1993 book, "The Invisible Faculty," state that budgets are balanced and classes assigned on the assumption that 20 to 50% of all undergraduate…

From the time a new faculty member is hired until a final decision is made on promotion and tenure, his/her record will undergo constant scrutiny by departmental personnel committees, school and/or university-wide committees, external reviewers, and administrators. A formal and clear-cut mentoring system can benefit new faculty members: senior…

At the post-secondary level, 38% of teaching is done by adjunct faculty. How did the profession become so divided? The answer goes beyond the academic profession because full-time positions are getting splintered into part-time ones all over the United States, but nevertheless academics make themselves particularly vulnerable because of their…