The following exploration examined the impact of working conditions on faculty teaching for full-time faculty and non-tenure track faculty within an academic department at a large Midwestern university to determine whether employment status and working conditions potentially impacted student learning outcomes. Questions asked of participating…

While much of the quantitative research on Black women faculty has taken a comparative approach to understanding their experiences, this study provides a counternarrative, centering their experiences as faculty. This large-scale, multi-institution glance at Black women faculty helps to give us an overview of these women across the country, looking…

This article examines the costs faculty pay to gain status and security in the academy. Academics receive salaries for their work, but also "pay taxes" in order to maintain a positive trajectory toward the ultimate "prize"--promotion and tenure (PT). The psychology of narrative method is used to examine the articulation of the…

Non-tenure track faculty are a growing majority in American higher education, but research examining their work lives is limited. Moreover, the theoretical frameworks commonly used by scholars have been critiqued for reliance on ideologically charged assumptions. Using a conceptual model developed from Hackman and Oldham's (1980) Job…

In April 2013, "NEJHE" launched its "New Directions for Higher Education" series to examine emerging issues, trends and ideas that have an impact on higher education policies, programs, and practices. In this installment, DiSalvio interviews Adrianna Kezar, professor of higher education at the University of Southern California…

This study investigates the relationships between demographic characteristics, perceptions of the academic climate, and the employment continuation plans of tenured and tenure-track faculty of color in CORE accredited rehabilitation counselor education (RCE) programs. Furthermore, this study aims to identify which factors best predict the…

In this paper, the authors call for an approach that, in recognizing the economic realities facing most institutions, attempts to put aside objections that funding is simply not available to support an expansion of the current tenure system. In calling for the changes in faculty working conditions, the authors recognize that change will…

In academia, there are two different worlds, one inhabited by tenure-track and the other by non-tenure-track faculty. In the first, people encourage faculty to become involved in a series of important reforms that increase student success, completion, and learning. In this first world, people envision faculty simultaneously increasing their…

A combination of destructive trends in higher education--shrinking state budgets, stagnant student aid, the growth of corporate-style management, the overuse and exploitation of contingent faculty, increasing workloads and attacks on academic freedom--is weakening the educational integrity and professionalism of American colleges and universities.…

The work of colleges and universities is carried out each day by committed, talented faculty members. The faculty's intellectual capital, taken collectively, is every institution's principal asset. Today, as higher-education institutions are faced with new challenges that only seem to grow more difficult the importance of all faculty members in…

As anyone who has ever defended a thesis or been on a tenure track must know, American institutions of higher education have rigorous and finely calibrated ways of according respect to those who work in them. What they do not have enough of is respect from those beyond their gates. The author argues that the system that created the two-tiered…

This monograph provides a portrait of non-tenure-track faculty, describes studies of their experiences, and proposes plans of action. Much of the research, particularly early on, tried to provide a picture and description of this faculty that have been largely invisible for years. Therefore, "Portrait of Non-Tenure-Track Faculty" focuses on the…

Faculty members who work directly to advance the institutional mission of teaching, learning, and at some institutions, research, represent the core human resource of higher education. They are the stewards of campus leadership and decision making. While the faculty role has changed over time, leadership has remained critical to innovation in…

Concerns the nonrenewal of appointments for two nontenured assistant professors at the University of West Florida. (PG)

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…