BY CAROLYN BETENSKY
It’s Campus Equity Week, a week of action from October 21 to 25 when faculty, students, and other advocates on campuses around the country are calling attention to the increasingly precarious nature of academic employment and its negative implications for higher education. Guest blogger Carolyn Betensky focuses here on obstacles to research and travel for contingent faculty marginalized by their employers and other potential funders.
According to recent AAUP data, various stripes of contingent faculty fill over 70 percent of instructional positions at American universities. As more and more campuses turn to hiring non-tenure-track faculty instead of funding new tenure lines, some institutions are opting to create full-time non-tenure-track positions rather than hiring per-course instructors. While it is unquestionably better to be a full-time employee (for those who seek to teach full time) than to be forced to patch together poorly paid and far-flung teaching assignments, non-tenure-track instructors are still treated differently from their tenure-stream peers. At best, this policy can be seen as a variation on the theme of (as Barack Obama put it, when urging the passage of the Affordable Care Act) “not letting the perfect be the enemy of the good.” At worst, it is a mode of exploitation that lets administrations (and tenured faculty) wrap themselves in the mantle of benevolence while perpetuating inequity on their campuses.
I am fortunate to teach at a university with a robust union (URI–AAUP) for full-time tenure-stream and non-tenure-track faculty. At the University of Rhode Island, we have negotiated a contract with our administration that has resulted in real improvements in the working conditions and salaries of lecturers, senior lecturers, and teaching professors. Indeed, the very possibility of advancement for full-time contingent faculty, culminating in the creation of the rank of teaching professor (a rank that signifies relative job security and higher income), came about through the efforts of our union negotiators.
Lecturers at these three ranks enjoy much better workplace conditions than their adjunct instructor colleagues. Most of them participate in the governance of their departments, with a number of them even going so far as to chair them. Lecturers—especially those who have been at this institution for many years and have earned the rank of teaching professor—are active forces in nearly every domain of life at this university. (Unfortunately, they are not entitled to a voice on the faculty senate, thanks to a rule that requires two thirds of the tenure-track faculty to ratify a change to the senate constitution, a threshold that reformers have thus far not been able to surmount.) Indeed, no less important a figure than the president of URI–AAUP is a teaching professor.
Many of my non-tenure-track colleagues are recognized scholars as well as impressive instructors. They publish peer-reviewed articles, write books, conduct scientific research, present papers, and design and run surveys and experiments. They also perform less visible work for their disciplines, too, such as serving as editors of scholarly journals, reviewing manuscripts and articles, organizing and attending local and national conferences, and so on. Many participate in and attend campus events such as colloquia and lecture series—not merely as teachers, but as members of a scholarly community. The scholarly contributions of full-time non-tenure-track colleagues are in many cases on par with those of tenure-stream faculty – despite the fact that lecturers typically teach four courses a semester, compared to the two or three courses taught by tenure-stream faculty. Yet institutional support for these scholars is shockingly scarce.
Recently, our dean sent out a message to faculty in the College of Arts and Sciences with the subject line, “FY20 Travel funding for tenured and tenure track faculty.” She was happy to inform us that we—or, more precisely, some of us—could apply for increased funding for conference travel. Excluding all colleagues who were not among the shrinking pool of tenured or tenurable faculty, the message was followed two months later by a call for proposals from the university’s research and economic development office. This office was seeking applications for project completion grants, and it stipulated that submissions were “encouraged from both tenured and tenure-track faculty,” implying, like the earlier announcement, that submissions from the sizeable cohort among us of non-tenure-track faculty were not welcome.
Of course, administrators at the University of Rhode Island are hardly unique in their policies of excluding non-tenure-stream faculty from funding opportunities for their scholarship. An NEH Summer Stipends Program notice that landed in my inbox not long ago bore the following proviso: “As you may know, this program requires all tenured or tenure-track applicants to be nominated by an official on their campus, and institutions can nominate up to two people. (Non-tenure-track faculty, adjunct faculty, staff, retired faculty, community college faculty, and independent scholars are exempt from nomination).” The widespread practice of limiting awards for scholarship to tenure-stream faculty crosses boundaries between private and public universities and colleges as well as between educational institutions and foundations. It is a national problem—and, given the conditions under which more and more faculty labor, it is a disgrace.
A growing cohort of our colleagues is being told that their scholarly contributions are simply not worth investing in. Such policies of exclusion are more than just the latest slap in the face to non-tenure-track faculty (though it is surely demoralizing, especially on a local level, to be reminded so baldly of one’s relative lack of worth). These policies also suggest that administrations would prefer not to acknowledge the fact that so many contingent members of the faculty are just as qualified and just as deserving as their tenure-track colleagues of the fullest benefits our universities offer.
Until our institutions treat all scholars with the respect and opportunities they are due by offering them the protections of tenure, the least they can do is open their competitions for funding to their non-tenure-track faculty. Otherwise, universities will be actively increasing the gap between the dwindling pool of the haves and the growing ranks of the have-nots. Furthermore, by denying opportunities to non-tenure-track faculty, universities are making it harder and harder for them to keep pace with their better-funded colleagues and improve their prospects for finding tenure-track positions elsewhere. The creation of full-time non-tenure-track positions (however much more secure or remunerative they are than adjunct positions) should not serve as a salve to the consciences of administrators at the same time as it perpetuates inequity.
Guest blogger Carolyn Betensky is professor of English at University of Rhode Island and is a representative for District X on the AAUP Council. She also serves on the AAUP’s Committee on Contingency.
I am surprised that I am siding with administration on this issue. Let me explain that I have had (minimal) travel funds available to me as an adjunct at at least 2-3 enlightened institutions. More often than not, as the blog explains, such funding is not for adjuncts.
That said, there is no need for “equality” between tenured/tenure-track faculty and those on contingent contracts. The chief — and often ONLY — contractual responsibility for adjuncts is generally TEACHING. There are usually NO research expectations. The fact that I continue to write for publication and give conference papers around the world should not necessarily become the financial obligation of the university that pays my pittance of a salary because research is not part of my official job description.
Furthermore, most adjunct contracts carry no expectation of automatic renewal; therefore, one’s long-term value to the college is not a factor in prioritizing travel funds — whereas TT and tenure-track faculty supposedly have a more permanent affiliation with the institution — and its reputation for scholarship and research.
Yes, there are many fine adjuncts out there — and I consider myself one of them — but i realize that my status now is different from those who hold full-time positions. Instead of travel funds, give me more job security so that I (and fellow “contingent employees”) cannot be fired on a whim.
How does one continue to teach well year after year without interacting within their disciplinary fields? If we don’t remain current in our fields, we’re babysitting, not teaching. And, if the administration is worried about adjuncts using research funds to better themselves and then leaving the university, they could always—-I don’t know—give them some reason to stay. By just hiring one less associate dean of some nonsense, the university would have plenty of funds every year to offer any good adjunct the opportunity to remain current in their fields.
Good points, Gina! I am fully in support of your idea to use funds for another assoc. dean or “compliance officer” to increase the pay and resources for adjuncts.
My point was that, given that 50-60% of faculty members are now P/T, the definition of the role needs to be re-defined — and that travel funding, important as it is, is not necessarily the most important part of upgrading the status and stature of contingent employees. One of the most important aspects is the very “contingency” of our labors: in most cases, an adjunct can be dismissed or non-renewed, even in mid-semester. Even some faculty unions allow their members to be fired without cause.
Frank, my friend, it seems to me that you have a blind-spot. The core problem identified here is not that adjuncts should enjoy the same status as tenure-track faculty, but that the number of tenure-track faculty is “dwindling” and being replaced with adjuncts, scholars, like yourself no doubt, who should have been hired on a full-time basis in the first place. The time has come for radical changes in the hiring process in higher education. The conventional way of seeking enough funding from neoliberal state governments to staff colleges adequately has failed. Unless we take radical action, the trend will continue until, as has been forecast by many, TT faculty become mid-level managers of an at-will pool of haggard scholars. We already have qualified scholars doing most of the teaching. Why not simply convert those positions to full-time employment? I agree with Carolyn that “[u]ntil our institutions treat all scholars with the respect and opportunities they are due by offering them the protections of tenure, the least they can do is open their competitions for funding to their non-tenure-track faculty.”
John Hoskins: Thank you for the gentle manner in which you chided me for my “blind spot.” I would respectfully disagree, though, that it IS a BLIND spot; I would call it a fully SIGHTED and STRATEGIC vision of the situation confronting adjuncts like myself.
I fully agree with you and the original blogger, Carolyn Betensky, about the awful conditions faced by precarious faculty. True, my comments singled out just ONE aspect of the problem, but research/travel funding for adjuncts seemed to me to be the most important premise of the OP.
In my view, better salaries and job security, as well as Academic Freedom, for adjuncts are more important issues to fight for, rather than travel funding (even though that is important too). Even our blogger Carolyn says that research funding is “THE LEAST THEY CAN DO is [to] open their competitions for funding to their non-tenure-track faculty.” But why settle for “the least,” especially when adjunct teaching is defined as it currently is: highly disposable human pedagogy ONLY?
Believe me, I have NO reason to side with administration, even though I was a dept. chair for over 10 years in my F/T academic career. Look what CCNY and my adjunct union (which denies its members both Academic Freedom AND Freedom of Speech BY UNION CONTRACT) did to me:
https://www.academia.edu/23593134/A_Leftist_Critique_of_Political_Correctness_Gone_Amok_–_Revised_and_Updated
Prof. Betensky comments that “various stripes of contingent faculty fill over 70 percent of instructional positions at American universities,” but I wonder if that is what the IPEDS data actually show. It’s a bit nit-picking, but in my R1 anthropology department, we have more “adjunct” appointments than TT faculty, and those appointments are, with only one exception, non-teaching courtesy appointments that allow local colleagues to get an email address, library privileges, on-campus parking, etc. I’m not sure how IPEDS counts these positions. Similarly, my colleagues in our law school are often “clinical” faculty (i.e. adjuncts) who volunteer as practicing lawyers to mentor law students, and I know the same is true for many volunteer medical school faculty. The struggles of contingent faculty are real and serious, but who falls into that category might be more complicated than simply ‘non-TT’ or ‘part-time.
It is true that there are different “breeds” of adjuncts and some may even be “mongrels.” Some have terminal degrees, publications, conference papers, and teaching awards; others have professional experience; and some have none of the above.
Our college long ago decided that full-time non tenure track faculty should be eligible for research and travel support on exactly the same basis as tenure track faculty, though they are not eligible for sabbaticals. They generally have the same teaching and service expectations (though they typically are paid less) and are expected to remain engaged with scholarship in their fields. Part-time faculty are also eligible for research and travel support after they have taught 18 courses, though their eligibility is capped at a lower level. If we believe an active scholarly agenda is important to teaching (and it clearly is) then there can be no justification for with-holding support from our colleagues.
I have tried to keep up to date with the literature on this ongoing trend in academia of the downsizing of tenured/tenure track faculty in favor of the hiring of more adjuncts, by any name, such as “professional track faculty” as designated at my institution. I haven’t checked lately, so that being said, what I haven’t seen is discussion of the tenured/tenure track faculty’s rights, under shared governance, in setting policies or in having roles in determining, when new positions are to be created, whether they should be tenure or non-tenure track positions.