Current literature shows a trend away from hiring faculty on a tenure line and instead hiring full-time non-tenure track faculty. Full-time non-tenure track faculty are becoming the majority base of the full-time faculty. It is unclear how this new majority of full-time non-tenure track faculty perceive shared governance at their respective…

The nature of the American academic workforce has fundamentally shifted over the past several decades. Whereas full-time tenured and tenure-track faculty were once the norm, more than two-thirds of the professoriate in non-profit postsecondary education is now comprised of non-tenure-track faculty. New hires across all institutional types are now…

The nature of the American academic workforce has fundamentally shifted over the past several decades. Whereas full-time tenured and tenure-track faculty were once the norm, the professoriate is now comprised of mostly non-tenure-track faculty. In 1969, tenured and tenure-track positions made up approximately 78.3% of the faculty and…

The mission of higher education and the activities of faculty are often described in terms of teaching, research, and service. Additionally, tenure has been the standard model for employment in American college and universities since 1940. The traditional model of faculty earning tenure through high standards of teaching, research, and service is…

It is important for administrators, faculty, and policy makers to understand and consider how policies commonly associated with non-tenure-track faculty roles and working environments impact student learning. Many policies impede the ability of faculty to provide effective instruction that is aligned with departmental and institutional goals for…

The nature of the American academic workforce has fundamentally shifted over the past several decades. Whereas full-time tenured and tenure-track faculty were once the norm, more than two-thirds of the professoriate in non-profit postsecondary education is now comprised of non-tenure-track faculty. New hires across all institutional types are now…

For decades it has been happening everywhere in academe, but nowhere in particular. The sweeping shift toward non-tenure-track academic labor has been one of the most worried-over trends in American higher education. But it has been charted mostly with broad-brush data, which give little indication of the trend's progress at the institutional…

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…

Existing regulations, case law, and limited legislative history indicate that an institution can continue to employ faculty without tenure after age 65. However, once tenure is removed, the faculty member is entitled to all the protection of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act. (MSE)

Nontenured faculty's claims to tenure as a property right, by virtue of common law principles, are examined from historical and litigation perspectives. The common law analysis proposed is applied to employment relationships in private and public institutions. (MSE)

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…

This report, one in a series about the priorities of the professoriate, presents a narrative summary of information received from 280 higher education institutions that responded to an American Association for Higher Education survey on tenure policies, practices, and trends. Provosts were asked to indicate whether their campuses had considered or…

The implications for the careers of junior faculty members of the trend toward creating tenure-track appointments that are tenure-track in name only, without any real security, are examined. (MSE)

Increasing use of non-tenure-track, full-time college professors, which some thought a temporary solution to institutional budgeting, has become common policy, according to a study of existing data for 88 four-year institutions. While administrators find flexibility and savings in the practice, faculty accuse institutions of exploiting Ph.D.s and…

The American Association of University Professors statement concerns policies and practices that open senior academic appointments to persons with reduced workloads and salaries without loss of status. (MSE)