Describes 2 differing Supreme Court rulings concerning procedures for explaining nonrenewal of contract to nontenured professors. (HS)

Studies conducted in 1979 and 1981 show that although almost all tenured faculty face insecurities, pressures, and a sense of isolation, women face more and different problems and perceive their situations differently, due to both socialization practices and social strictures. (GC)

Flexible tenure contracts are proposed as an alternative to the current college faculty tenure system. Such a contract would make more explicit, and potentially more varied, the contributions expected of the candidate, but avoid the tenure-track/non-tenure-track distinction. It could also help resolve conflicts over the relative weights to be…

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…

A study looked at student (n=10,270) evaluations of tenure- and nontenure-track teachers (n=30), nonskill versus skill courses, and tenure- and nontenure-track for nonskill and skill courses. Results indicate that students rate tenure-track teachers and skill course teachers significantly higher. They give similar ratings to tenure- and…

Examines how women's representation on the faculty of mathematical science departments has changed across ranks and institutional settings in the 1990s. Finds that the proportion of women faculty has increased but the proportion of tenure-track and tenured women has not grown. (Contains 16 references.) (Author/WRM)

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…

Chronicles a year-long mentoring relationship at Kean University (New Jersey) through the eyes of the participants: one senior and tenured faculty member and one junior, first-year faculty member. States that the program is very successful in providing support to both new and seasoned faculty and allows participants to develop relationships with…

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…

Over the last generation, the instructional staffing system in American higher education has experienced a significant reduction in the proportion of jobs for full-time tenured and tenure-track faculty members and a dramatic growth in fixed-term full- and part-time instructional jobs without tenure. About 70 percent of the people teaching in…

The percentage of new assistant professor appointments who are women has lagged behind that of new women Ph.D.s. Additionally, the percentage of women promoted to associate and full professor has lagged behind that of those appointed assistant professor. The explanation offered for this slow progress of women in academe has been that faculty women…

Court decisions regarding appointment, renewal, and termination of nontenured faculty members are reviewed with the conclusion that if further incursion of the courts into the internal affairs of universities is to be avoided both faculty and administrators should reexamine and change policies and procedures to comply with current court decisions.…

The development of professional and career-oriented programs within the traditional liberal arts college is discussed, along with the impact such programs might have on the character and climate of the institution and on the jobs of untenured classics professors. (Author/LBH)

Reviews recent studies on the plight of part-time faculty at the college level and attempts to achieve a perspective that fits the treatment of part-time teachers into an overall scheme. (CRH)

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…