Contingent faculty members spend a greater proportion of their overall time teaching, but the preliminary evidence suggests that these appointees are less accessible to students, bring less scholarly authority to their jobs, and are less integrated into the campus culture. The purpose of this chapter is to offer some reflections on the ascendancy…

Among personal memories for one minority instructor in literature is witnessing the civil rights movement, that defining period in which people of African descent broke out of the chrysalis of "Jim Crow" and transformed themselves from "colored" to "Black." In 1995, 1,000,000 Black men once again converged on the…

This book is a practical guide to the college faculty tenure process and offers concrete advice on strategies to increase a faculty member's chances of obtaining tenure. Chapter 1 defines tenure and touches on elements of the qualifications, professional regulation, and institutional investment. Chapter 2 urges candidates to actively manage their…

An overview is provided of the issues, procedures, and prevailing judicial rationale for faculty tenure decisions in the state of Washington. All legal cases decided in Washington and cases from other jurisdictions that have had an impact on Washington law are summarized in this digest. Each case summary consists of an introduction of issues…

Advice is provided to teachers and scholars entering the academic profession at a college or university. The report reviews the usual standards and practices governing faculty employment in higher education and offers candid suggestions about how untenured faculty members might protect their rights. This information is designed to inform the…

The possibility that sex differences in geographic mobility patterns underlie some of the sex differences in college faculty career patterns is addressed in this study of career advancement. Two major hypotheses were tested: (1) that women's mobility patterns are different from men's because women are less likely to move and more likely to be…

When a large group of nontenured part-time English department faculty were summarily dismissed, a significant segment of the English curriculum was left largely unattended, and other problems arose throughout the institution. (MSE)

A discussion by endorsers of the American Association of University Professors' (AAUP) 1940 statement on academic freedom and tenure is summarized, including the topics of academic accuracy watchdogs, government constraints on academic freedom, irregular faculty appointments and periodic review, special issues at church-related colleges, and the…

Reflecting the national trend toward less costly undergraduate education, ranked college faculty at the University of South Florida (USF) have generated steadily decreasing portions of total university instructional full-time equivalence (FTE), going from 72% in 1983 to 57% in 1994, while less costly graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) and…

In 1993, the University of North Carolina at Charlotte's governing board mandated peer evaluation for nontenured faculty. Participants in the American Association for Higher Education's peer review project feared the mandate would taint efforts to introduce faculty to collegial approaches to peer review. However, negative fallout from the mandate…

Interviews with 12 college faculty examined the increased use of clinical nontenure track faculty in teacher education programs. The paper presents a history of professional development school (PDS) work and staffing patterns at the University of Utah, describes the study, notes emerging themes, and considers implications for future PDS…

In early 1997, over 100 University of California, Hayward faculty members signed a statement of concern about the heavy use of part-time faculty as lecturers. Professors fear that increased use of lecturers threatens tenure, hurts quality of education, and reduces departmental continuity. Part-time faculty are generally treated as a different…

Analyzes scholarship on administrative leadership styles. Describes the writing program co-directorship model the author and a colleague developed at a Southern public university, and offers a critical analysis of both the possibilities and pitfalls of collaborative administration for untenured writing program administrators. Points out ways in…

At a time when some are critical of higher education's increasing reliance on part-time and adjunct faculty, many of those faculty do not seek tenure or full-time teaching positions. While they would like better pay and benefits, they prefer part-time work so they can pursue other jobs or interests and enjoy the teaching they do. (MSE)

This digest is a brief summary of a longer monograph of the same title on the importance of understanding faculty socialization as a cultural process in the context of the current changes urged on higher education. A section on how faculty socialization is conceptualized adopts a view of culture in which culture shapes and is shaped by social…