Analyzes case law on the denial of tenure after a review. Addresses the following issues: due process, access to reviewed materials and deliberations, authority of the ultimate decision-makers, claimed violations of civil rights, liability claims, and quests for damages. Presents recommendations for making higher education policies and practices…

Women faculty will continue to lag behind males in achieving tenure as long as the ideal academic is defined as someone who takes no time off for childbearing. Suggests that the solution is to redefine the ideal worker in academia by offering proportional pay, benefits, and advancement for part-time work. Presents a model half-time tenure track…

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

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…

This empirical research examines the predictors of intended departure for tenured vs. nontenured full-time faculty at research and doctoral institutions across an array of disciplines. What are the characteristics of those who intend to leave their institutions? Do tenured and nontenured faculty show different patterns of intended departure? And…

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…

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)

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)

Many colleges and universities are hiring full-time faculty on contract instead of on tenure tracks, saying alternatives to lifetime job security are needed to control costs and assure flexibility. The number of full-time non-tenure-track professors almost doubled between 1975 and 1995, while full-time faculty on tenure tracks fell 12%. (MSE)

A paradigm shift in the use of faculty appointment types is occurring in academia. Using National Study of Postsecondary Faculty data, this study examines the influence of appointment type on faculty productivity--research and education--and commitment at Research and Doctoral institutions. All full-time faculty and a subset based on experience…

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)

Departmental changes by faculty staff are suggested to be one solution to the budgetary problems of some institutions, rather than the more prevalent practice of nonreappointment of untenured faculty. (LBH)