Bridges not Blockades: Transcending University Politics (original) (raw)
Related papers
Decline of Tenure for Higher Education Faculty: An Introduction
LABOR Online, 2016
For most college and university instructors in the United States today, teaching provides neither the job security nor income typically associated with middle class careers. That is because about 70 percent of all instructors are not eligible for tenure. Not everyone thinks that the decline of tenure is a problem. It's become commonplace to for critics of higher education to traffic in the myth that most tenured faculty are lazy and don't have to work very hard. Other criticisms of the tenure system are that it privileges research over teaching, stifles change, or is simply antiquated. These critics suggest that its abolition would increase faculty productivity and student learning, as well as reward good teachers. A look at the experience of college and university instructors who teach without the possibility of tenure suggests that whatever the problems with the tenure system, the new system replacing it is worse. The decline of faculty tenure coincides with the rise of the "gig economy" in the U.S.. As with so many different careers in the private sector that have been subcontracted out into temporary jobs in the last 30 years, instructors hired off the tenure track tend to have lower wages, worse benefits, less job stability, and fewer opportunities for promotion.
Center For Studies in Higher Education, 2007
This paper focuses on the present condition and future of the professoriate and is part of a long-term study on how the academic profession is changing, now more rapidly than at any time in memory. These dramatic shifts have led to a deep restructuring of academic appointments, work, and careers. The question now looming is whether the forces that have triggered academic restructuring will, in time, so transform the academic profession that its role-its unique contribution-is becoming ever more vulnerable to dangerous compromise. Whether the academic profession is able to negotiate successfully its role in the new era-to preserve core values and to ensure the indispensable contributions of the academy to society-remains to be seen. Whither the professoriate? As the academy spins into the new century, it enters also a new era, one in which the future of the American faculty is as unclear as at any time in the past. As we document in our recently published study, The American Faculty: The Restructuring of Academic Work and Careers, substantial transformation of the American academic profession has occurred in recent decades, since the brief interlude of "unrest" subsided circa 1970. 1 In its closing chapters, we interpret our empiricallybased findings and speculate about what lies ahead for the (thus far) indomitable, if somewhat rattled, academic profession.
The proportion of contingent faculty to full-time tenured and tenure-track faculty teaching in American colleges and universities has increased dramatically in recent decades. According to U.S. Department of Education statistics, the ranks of the former grew from 268,883 in 1975 to 885,803 by 2005. During that same period the numbers of the latter increased from 353,681 to only 414,574. Nor does this trend give any sign of abating. Contingent faculty continue in growing numbers to teach classes part-time or on limited-term contracts, without permanent appointments, adequate compensation or appropriate professional support. Higher education researchers deplore this casualizaton of academic labor, which, they argue, results in an unstable workforce, impaired academic freedom, and diminished educational quality.
The American Professoriate: A Status Check of Factors and Perceptions
World Journal of Education, 2012
Since the publication of Scholarship Reconsidered: Priorities of the Professoriate (Boyer, 1990) many changes have taken place in higher education in America. However, how have faculty perceptions of aspects of the professoriate such as teaching, research, publishing, administration, quality, and areas of interest, changed in the twenty-plus years since the initial research on this topic. This project provides an overview and insight in the current concerns of faculty with respect to promotion and tenure issues. The findings suggest a number of changes have taken place in the way scholarship is perceived by faculty. Publishing still maintains a significant role in decision-making about tenure and promotion and there is still a significant difference in the perception of factors in achieving tenure and promotion between research institutions and liberal arts institutions. There are differences between tenured and non-tenured faculty in concerning what constitutes appropriate scholarship. The scholarship of teaching is seen as important by faculty and yet most have indicated they have little formal teacher training. In both research and liberal arts institutions research and grant writing are seen as important, but there is also a concern that these activities detract from the primary role as a teacher.
Issues Affecting the Professoriate in the 1990s
1994
This review of the literature examines five issues affecting college faculties in the 1990s and identifies various views on these issues while providing a general overview. A section on multiculturalism identifies it as one of the leading issues facing faculty. This section looks at views on the challenges of racial diversity; racial tension; and increased diversity by gender, cultural background, and disability. A section on organizational factors looks at administrative changes affecting faculty many of which are linked to fiscal considerations. This section covers views on the fiscal crisis, faculty attrition and status, merit pay, and the information explosion. A section on mission raises some broad issues about the mission of U.S. higher education and treats theoretical versus practical applications and university-industry alliances. A section on professional factors addresses approaches to faculty evaluation, staff development, and scholarly communication. The final section looks at personal factors such as burnout, worklife (culture and morale), and the perceived role of teaching. Closing remarks highlight the variety and speed of change in higher education and the consequent stress for faculty. This section also urges institutions to confront changes and tensions in defining and maintaining their mission. (Contains 104 references.) (JB)
The Impact of the Academic Revolution on Faculty Careers
1973
In this report a three-strand model for faculty careers is developed. These strands are the disciplinary, the institutional, and the external career of faculty. An attempt is made to determine the outcome of the "academic revolution" spoken of by Jencks and Reisman in their landmark study of that title. Some of the topics covered include faculty power, influence, and prestige, recruitment and promotion, academic markets, and initial socialization of faculty toward their discipline and their teaching role. The report evaluates the diverse studies on faculty careers and synthesizes them into a general framework. Rather than review the literature, however, it selects the most valuable information from all the research to provide as complete an analysis as possible of faculty careers.
Tenure in 2017: A Per Institution View
2019
As advocacy to increase tenure-track academic career opportunities for PhD recipients and reverse institutions' abuse of an immiserated class of adjunct instructors has long deplored, the portion of the faculty with tenure or on the tenure track has declined to under a third of the academic workforce, while the segment with part-time appointments has emerged as by far the largest of faculty's three segments (the tenured and tenure-track, the part-time non-tenure-track, and the full-time non-tenure-track). This working paper presents a per institution account of the number and percentage of tenured and tenure-track, part-time non-tenure-track, and full-time non-tenure-track faculty members teaching in each of the 4,279 two- and four-year degree-granting Title IV-participating colleges and universities covered in the 2017 Employees by Assigned Position component of the U. S. Department of Education's Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) survey series. The...