ERIC Number: ED662007
Record Type: Non-Journal
Publication Date: 2024
Pages: 10
Abstractor: ERIC
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: N/A
EISSN: N/A
The Role of Academic Affairs in Supporting VITAL Faculty on Campus. A Guide Created by the Delphi Project on the Changing Faculty and Student Success
Adrianna Kezar; KC Culver
Pullias Center for Higher Education
In this brief, the authors argue that creating avenues to support VITAL faculty is an essential role for leaders within academic affairs, and particularly those in faculty affairs. While the authors review a host of supports needed, they argue for the importance of sustained professional development opportunities like faculty learning communities and certificate programs as they start to make these roles more long-term and career oriented. The authors use the term VITAL faculty -- an asset-based term -- to refer to contingent or non-tenure track faculty (including visiting faculty, instructors, adjuncts, lecturers, research faculty, and clinical faculty) as a way to affirm what they are, rather than what they are not. The authors work at the Delphi Project on the Changing Faculty and Student Success has identified the need for faculty affairs to take responsibility for VITAL faculty, as they often have not had an advocate or any structures to support their work. The absence of leadership positions and structures dedicated specifically to VITAL faculty support has led to the problems they have seen over the last few decades -- declines in graduation and retention rates for students, low morale among faculty, and a lack of belonging for students and faculty. [The Delphi Project on the Changing Faculty and Student Success is an initiative of the Pullias Center for Higher Education at the University of Southern California. The Delphi Project works in partnership with the American Association of College and Universities (AAC&U).]
Descriptors: College Faculty, Adjunct Faculty, Part Time Faculty, Leadership Responsibility, Faculty Development, Communities of Practice, Nontenured Faculty, Needs, Networks
Pullias Center for Higher Education. University of Southern California Rossier School of Education, Waite Phillips Hall Room 701, 3470 Trousdale Parkway, Los Angeles, CA 90089. Tel: 213-740-7218; Fax: 213-740-3889; e-mail: pullias@usc.edu; Web site: http://pullias.usc.edu
Publication Type: Reports - Evaluative
Education Level: Higher Education; Postsecondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: National Science Foundation (NSF), Division of Undergraduate Education (DUE)
Authoring Institution: University of Southern California, Pullias Center for Higher Education
Grant or Contract Numbers: 1914784