The tenure evaluation process is characterized by a lack of clarity and governed by unspoken rules. At the same time, while institutions have increased the presence of racially minoritized people among the ranks of faculty over the last 30 years, this growth in numbers has been concentrated among non-tenure track and pre-tenure levels. This study…

Higher education institutions have adopted diversity course requirements while hiring more faculty members off the tenure track. Non-tenure track faculty members' experiences teaching required diversity courses while navigating their precarious employment status has not been sufficiently explored. Addressing this need, the present study examined…

This article introduces the Faculty Appointment Security Typology which combines the variables of Permanent Faculty (tenured, tenure-earning), Contingent Faculty (non-tenure), Full-Time, and Part-Time. The research question is, are female and minoritized faculty overrepresented in less secure faculty appointment types, and has the phenomenon…

Public universities have assumed business-minded practices and norms that more closely align with goals and values of corporations than social institutions charged with creating and disseminating knowledge. One pervasive cost-savings strategy is the outsourcing of instruction to a contingent workforce. This case study explores the experiences of…

Given the changing landscape of postsecondary faculty employment, institutions benefit from understanding how organizational policies and behaviors affects the faculty's perception of organizational support. Using data from faculty members, including those with contingent and part-time appointments, at a single institution in the western United…

The American professoriate is shifting its majority makeup from tenure track to non-tenure track faculty members. Less known, though, is what the implications of this shift are for students' course experiences. We sought to examine the extent to which the teaching practices, with regard to academic rigor and cognitively responsive teaching, differ…

The nature of the faculty has changed dramatically over the last forty years; and today's faculty model no longer meets the needs of students, faculty, or institutions. However, the issue of redefining faculty roles is extremely contentious. In this article we report our examination of open-ended, qualitative data from a larger survey study of…

Non-tenure track faculty members (NTTF) constitute what has been referred to by scholars as the new faculty majority. The growing numbers of NTTF have led to debates about the role they should play in shared governance. Currently, however, an overall lack of empirical knowledge exists regarding the status of their involvement in institutional…

Institutions of higher education are increasingly hiring non-tenure track faculty members (NTTF) to help meet the demands of the institutional teaching mission. Research suggests NTTF experience inadequate working conditions that hinder performance and negatively impact the quality of undergraduate education. Given the growing number of NTTF…

Students take summer and compressed courses for a variety of reasons and research indicates that learning outcomes in these courses are similar to those gained in traditional semester or quarter courses. This quantitative study was an attempt to clarify faculty perceptions about summer compressed courses. One hundred and fifty-one faculty members…