New faculty members rarely receive guidance on how to be a faculty member, and entry into the profession gets more difficult over time. Lists common characteristics of new faculty members including characteristics of those labeled as quick starters. (DDR)

Introduces the issue's Symposium on Academic Freedom and Responsibility. Discusses the current debate on tenure and its role in securing and promoting academic freedom. Proposes a model "Academic Freedom Policy and Procedures," to which subsequent articles in the issue (by Robert M. O'Neil, J. Peter Byrne, and Richard T. De George)…

Agrees that Martin Michaelson's proposal in "Should Untenured as Well as Tenured Faculty Be Guaranteed Academic Freedom? A Few Observations" deserves study as an alternative to the current system of tenure and might be useful because it affords more scrupulous procedures for personnel judgments about new faculty. Asserts that anything…

Asserts that Martin Michaelson's proposal in "Should Untenured as Well as Tenured Faculty Be Guaranteed Academic Freedom? A Few Observations," despite its good intentions, is seriously flawed and if adopted in preference to existing standards will weaken rather than strengthen academic freedom. (EV)

Discusses Jill Carroll, an adjunct faculty member who thinks the key to success is forgetting about tenure and taking an entrepreneurial approach to getting work. She has written a manual for adjunct professors that encourages them to quit seeing themselves as victims and to deal with the system that exists. (EV)

Faculties are aging along with the rest of society. Low retirement rates and slow growth limit the number of new hiring opportunities in many institutions. Universities face a series of common challenges that will shape higher education in the 21st century. In order to maintain high quality faculties in the coming years, universities must develop…

A survey of 222 accounting faculty measured the expectations of new and more experienced faculty members concerning workload. Results show that new faculty members have an unrealistic idea of the amount of time they will have to spend on work. Implications for both employers and faculty are presented. (CH)

The "Heeding New Voices" study, a year-long series of structured interviews with new faculty and graduate students aspiring to be faculty members around the country, sought both to give voice to those who are just beginning their academic careers and to provide guidance for the senior faculty, chairs, deans, and others in higher…

Surveys English department chairs nationwide, examining the status of full-time non-tenure-track teachers in English departments of PhD-granting institutions. Finds that universities commonly hire short-term lecturers to teach when regular faculty members are "too expensive" for the job. Reports a plan adopted by Texas Tech University to deal with…

This article examines the plight of adjunct university faculty and urges new policies to express appreciation for their contributions to the teaching profession. A response from an adjunct faculty member at Hunter College, City University of New York, follows. (one reference) (KM)

Asserts that part-time faculty cannot enjoy as full a protection for academic freedom as do full-time faculty, let alone faculty with tenure, because they are too removed from the system of peer review. Clarifies the nuances of difference in the academic freedom available to part-time faculty and suggests procedures for its protection. (EV)

These days, most newly hired faculty are appointed on a part-or full-time nontenure- track basis. The AAUP has reported that between 1975 and 2003, full-time tenure-track positions increased by only about 16 percent, while full-time non-tenure-track positions grew by 178 percent, and part-time appointment rose by 189 percent. Yet tenure…

This scripted dialogue is a fully documented story about the history and conditions of one group of post-secondary teachers of English. The narrative focuses on the proposal of this group of "permanent" temporary writing instructors from Western Illinois University to convince administrators to change their status to tenure track by…

Examines two problems with the promotion system fostered by the AAUP and certain universities: (1) the policies as they deal with junior faculty; and (2) the kind of colleague the policies have produced. (NH)

Using data from the National Study of Postsecondary Faculty: 1993 (NSOPF:93) and the NSOPF of 1999 (NSOPF:99), this study focused on changes in the tenure status of full-time instructional faculty and staff at two- and four-year institutions between fall 1992 and fall 1998. It analyzed changes in tenure status by level and control of institution,…