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…

A history of the professoriate would not be complete without an account of nontenure-track faculty. Whether these faculty members are referenced using the terms "contingent," "part time," "contract," "adjunct," "clinical," "research," "visiting," "lecturer," or…

This Accountability Report shows the status and progression of Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University (FAMU) from one year to the next. The Executive Summary is divided into the following sections: (1) Dashboard; (2) Key Achievements; and (3) Narrative. Data tables on FAMU's financial resources, personnel, enrollment, undergraduate…

This study was conducted to develop a demographic profile of full-time educational leadership clinical faculty, to identify their professional responsibilities, and to compare their job satisfaction and perceptions of the educational leadership field with those of tenure-line faculty. Utilizing an online questionnaire, 140 clinical faculty and 755…

This article presents three recent American Association of University Professors (AAUP) cases that involved the dismissal of a senior non-tenure-track member of the faculty. The most recent case resulted in the investigating committee's report on Nicholls State University, a regional public institution in Louisiana. Preceding Nicholls was an…

Boston University (BU) has had a history of contentious relations between administrators and faculty. John Silber, who ran the university from the early 1970s through the late 1990s, gave faculty little say in university governance, and an "us versus them" atmosphere soon developed. In 2004, however, major changes in the board of…

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…

If one reads the paper or listens to the news, professional disposition are almost becoming critical job skills in the world of work. Similarly, faculty dispositions, defined in this article as "attitudes, values, and beliefs demonstrated through both verbal and non-verbal behaviors as educators interact with students, families, colleagues, and…

This monograph complements volume 36, issue number 4 of ASHE Higher Education Report: "Understanding the New Majority of Non-Tenure-Track Faculty," and focuses on theories applied to study non-tenure-track faculty and philosophical and practical tensions represented in the literature. The chapter "Theories Used to Study and…

It is important to understand existing research on the connections between non-tenure-track faculty and student learning and to continue to research these issues. Although working conditions vary across the academy and even within a single institution, many faculty--particularly part-timers--are not permitted to contribute to curriculum planning…

There are two worlds that exist in the academe: a world where the tenure system remains strong and a world dominated by the absence of tenure. In this article, the author cites the differences between these two worlds. In a world where tenure remains strong, academic departments benefit from a stable, dedicated workforce composed of tenured and…

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.…

New faculty members are traditionally indoctrinated into a system that demands that they write incessantly and successfully publish their manuscripts. Yet they typically are not offered help in navigating the publishing process. For junior faculty members who have little experience with scholarly writing beyond their doctoral dissertations, these…

This article describes the experiences, perceptions, and available support systems of untenured faculty from a south eastern United States public university system in their progress toward tenure. Survey results were used to develop a model support system for new faculty. Data were collected from an online survey sent to 191 tenure-track faculty…

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…