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…

Despite tremendous progress toward gender equality and equity in institutions of higher education, deep patterns of discrimination against women in the academy persist. From the "chilly climate" to the "old boys' club," women academics must navigate structures and cultures that continue to marginalize, penalize, and undermine…

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…

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…

New public management (NPM) approaches have informed policy in the public sector in advanced countries in the last decade. Some authors suggest that the main objective of NPM at the organisational level is to change the traditional way professionals are regulated. This study examines the impact of NPM on the working conditions of Portuguese higher…

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…

In this article, the authors provide a description of the academic climate in New Mexico. Like many other places in the world today, New Mexico is trying to find an identity in an environment that the authors label "increasingly privatized, corporatized, and militarized." New Mexico's higher education salaries are lower than those in…

Back in the 1970s, when the author was an art professor at California State University at Northridge, he had a colleague who absolutely would not say anything about anybody that he would not say to that person's face. Marvin Harden, the African-American artist, originally came to Los Angeles in the late 1950s from segregated Austin, Texas, to play…

Non-tenure-track (NTT) research faculty are perhaps the most under-recognized group of academic professionals on the campuses today, despite their increasingly important role within the expanding academic research enterprise. The American Association for the Advancement of Science reports that the amount of federal spending on R&D has more than…

Over the last sixteen years, part-time teachers have become the coolies, or the burden bearers of the academic community. Used mostly to teach lower-level basic classes, they have increased in number from 36,420 in l968 to 330,000 in l985. Research about part timers began in the late l970s with Howard Tuckman, who tried to find systematic and…

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…

Discusses the employment conditions and levels of satisfaction of the increasing numbers of full- and part-time college faculty members ineligible for tenure. Recommends extension of academic freedom, a reasonable amount of job security for all faculty, inclusion of tenure-ineligible faculty members in governance, and basing faculty rewards and…

A study used available data to develop a profile of non-tenure-track college faculty (n=132) and compare it with a similarly derived profile of untenured but tenure-track faculty (n=587). The research explored the relationship between employment status and selected demographic, career orientation, career circumstance, and work environment…

The faculty career is changing in response to external and internal pressures. Discusses pressures for institutional change, current faculty demographics, and possible institutional responses including modifications to traditional tenure systems (changes to the probationary period and time base of tenure, productivity concerns) and faculty career…

The academic qualifications, experience, and productivity of nontenure-track and tenured/tenure-track full-time and part-time faculty at a state university are compared, based on the results of a 1985 study. Recommendations concerning working conditions and policy for nontenure-track faculty are also offered. Findings include: almost 87% of…