Dec. 2

Exception to the Rule

The percentage of faculty members who are off the tenure track keeps going up, and they are quite possibly in the majority in American higher education. Administrators have justified the hiring pattern — even before the current economic downturn — by saying that they gain flexibility and talent without tenure, and end up saving money as well.

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Elon University, a private institution in North Carolina, offers evidence that institutions can reverse the tide and build up their tenured and tenure-track ranks. In the 1990s, Elon’s faculty was split about evenly between adjuncts and those on the tenure track. Today, about 74 percent of professors are either tenured or tenure track. Even with the national economy in turmoil, Elon’s leaders say that they plan to continue in this direction until the faculty is about 85 percent tenure track.

Particularly notable, given the concerns of many adjuncts that shifts away from contingent labor will only cost them jobs, is the fact that Elon has hired some former adjuncts into tenure-track jobs, given them credit for their time as adjuncts, and in some cases tenured them.

The impetus for the shift came from faculty members who worked in the mid-1990s on developing a strategic plan for Elon that would distinguish it from other institutions. Elon wouldn’t try to compete with research powerhouses like nearby Duke University or the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. But it did want to add new programs and to stake a claim about being a place for “engaged learning.”

John Sullivan, a professor emeritus of philosophy, is credited with putting the issue of the tenure track front and center when the discussion of “engaged learning” came up. “We were talking about producing a community of learners,” and the idea of community was central, he said.

Faculty members wanted to be sure students would have contact with their instructors in class and out of class, and year after year – which isn’t easy to ensure if you are relying on adjuncts for many courses.

“If we wanted more commitments of faculty time, we needed to make more commitments to faculty,” he said.

While some at Elon were worried about the issue of fairness to adjuncts — an issue that played a role in the discussions — the driving idea was the emphasis on the institution’s identity and the faculty role that was seen as necessary to make that identity a reality.

Leo Lambert became president of Elon in 1999, as these discussions solidified. He said that the consensus, which he strongly supported, was that “if we wanted to build the most excellent faculty, we really needed to radically increase our institutional commitment to tenure and tenure-track faculty.”

Elon is a “quintessential tuition-driven institution” in terms of its budget. There is no mammoth endowment on which to rely. Lambert said that timing was key to the success of the shift of faculty positions: Elon was attracting more and better applications and students, so this was a period of “institutional confidence” during which trustees and those on campus knew that there would be students to support the new positions. He said he was less sure a college could make such a transformation while worrying over whether students would show up.

The provost, Gerald L. Francis, along with Tim Peeples, then a faculty member and now associate dean of arts and sciences, led the process of identifying – campus-wide – which positions should be converted. Because the college was generally growing its faculty over the period of time in which the tenured ranks grew, adjuncts didn’t lose many jobs so much as the new hiring was on the tenure track.

Faculty Status at Elon

Job status	1990-1	2007-8
Tenured	32	135
Tenure-track, but not tenured	22	94
Off the tenure track	78	82

The non-tenure track faculty members, generally instructors without a terminal degree, receive full benefits, based on the same assumption underlying the overall plan: that the university benefits from having teaching done by people who feel part of the community.

Francis said that the new tenure-track slots, while gradually phased in, have covered just about every department.

When administrators at other campuses defend the widespread use of adjuncts, they typically cite the need to assign positions where enrollment is growing. Department chairs at Elon report that enrollments were carefully studied as positions were added on the tenure track. “We’ve had to show some pain first before the gain,” said Chalmers Brumbaugh, chair of political science. The department is doing a search this year for a tenure-track professor, a position that will bring the department to 14 full-time professors, all but two either tenured or on the tenure track. When he arrived at Elon in 1986, there were only three full timers in the department.

Brumbaugh said that in discussions about adding positions, “one of the criteria that resonates is the percentage of courses taught by adjuncts.” As the percentage rises, and courses show consistent interest, the college has been adding new positions. “When I say that I have to keep adding sections, that argument resonates,” he said.

While Elon has hired many high quality adjuncts over the years, Brumbaugh said that there is no comparison in his mind in what tenure-track faculty offer students. “They can take advisees, they can spend more time with the student,” he said. “Adjuncts, as good as they may be in the classroom, may have an office hour here or there, but they are not part of the institution and the institutional culture in the same way.”

That view is shared by professors who started at Elon as adjuncts and were able to switch to the tenure track and earn tenure. Yoram Lubling, a professor of philosophy, arrived in 1991 for a one-year replacement position. That turned into a series of one-year contracts off the tenure track — what he calls “full work and part pay.” In 1996, he won a permanent slot off the tenure track, and in 1998 he was hired for a tenure-track position when his department received one. He was given some credit for his teaching prior to joining the tenure track, so he came up for tenure and received it in 2002.

Since joining the tenure tack, Lubling has been able to step up writing in a way that would have been impossible for him before. He just published a book about the prisoners’ revolt in the Treblinka concentration camp, and he’s under contract for a book about John Dewey.

In many ways, he said, the writing time doesn’t come from not teaching, but from not job hunting and not worrying. “In the humanities, jobs are very scarce, so not having tenure and being on a yearly contract makes it impossible to actually have an academic career,” he said. “You are constantly preoccupied with finding jobs.” At the beginning of his Elon career, he said, “it felt like all I was doing was worrying about where I’m going to teach the following year.”

As a tenured faculty member, in contrast, “you feel the university has made a commitment.”

— Scott Jaschik

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Comments

What about local economy?

IMHO, it also helps to be located in an area that has had recent, significant economic growth. As opposed to economies propped up by mere talk of “change.”

Tar Heels Forever, Chair at Dean Smith for President WG, at 9:05 am EST on December 2, 2008

So how much does it cost?

I’d be interested to know how much more Elon is spending on faculty salaries since they put this new plan into practice. I bet the percentage of total expenditures is not high—which would mean that most universities and colleges aren’t really saving that much money by steadily increasing their reliance on adjuncts. The factor you can’t get around is flexibility: since you can never know exactly how many sections you’ll need in any given semester, you have to be able to hire (or not hire) a few part-time people. But if Elon’s actual monetary saving could be shown to win them a far greater amount in goodwill (and thus, say, new enrollments and new donations), we might be able to reverse the current trend nationwide.

Doug Robinson, at 9:05 am EST on December 2, 2008

I wonder

President Lambert is quoted saying, “if we wanted to build the most excellent faculty, we really needed to radically increase our institutional commitment to tenure and tenure-track faculty.” Are there *any* data at all that would support this view? There seems to be an unquestioned presumption in all the discussion regarding adjuncts vs. tenure-track, part-time vs. full-time, that the former is bad and the latter is good. (Very much like class size: small = good; large = bad.) It seems to me that this should really be honestly considered an open question and studied before presuming that we should all go the way of Elon. Before AAUP’s arguments against increasing use of adjuncts over tenure-track faculty as simply taken as true without evidence. I cannot think of studies of this topic that I’ve seen. Is student learning less robust with adjuncts than with tenure-track faculty? Are tenure-line faculty better teachers? If not based on direct measures of student learning, even a study that surveys students regarding their ratings of faculty teaching, clarity, organization, accessibility, etc.? E.g., studies of student course evaluations?

DDVA, at 9:20 am EST on December 2, 2008

The data

The literature I’ve read gives mixed results to the question of a connection between quality instruction and the tenured/adjunct status of the faculty member. Most of the nods to the tenured faculty are not for instruction but in the areas of advising, office hour availability, etc. What I have seen or hear little of is the third way a F/T non-tenured faculty.

KC, at 10:00 am EST on December 2, 2008

This is my first posting and I am new to this website. Please forgive my ignorance on this subject(tenure vs. adjunt professorship), however, I am deeply concerned about the control the political left has left on higher education.

We cannot get rid of the political element in our colleges and universities because of tenure. How do we ever expect to get back to educating our children to look at all points of view, think critically, and end up educated instead of being indoctrinated?

I am interested in a dialogue on this subject

May Pelletier, at 10:20 am EST on December 2, 2008

Evidence, please

I agree that more studies need to be done. The presumption that faculty members who feel respected and well treated make better, more effective professors and contribute to a stronger, healthier institution should be tested. And such tests should be conducted soon, while there are still full-time professors against which contingent labor may be compared.

BertW, at 10:20 am EST on December 2, 2008

data is already coming in

For those seeking data to support claims that institutions are more effective if they rely more on tenured and tenure-track faculty, a recent article in the Chronicle (from the issue dated November 14) highlights some new studies on just that question. It’s worth the quick read.

Mark Potter, at 12:00 pm EST on December 2, 2008

Doug Robinson writes, “But if Elon’s actual monetary saving could be shown to win them a far greater amount in goodwill (and thus, say, new enrollments and new donations), we might be able to reverse the current trend nationwide.”

We could reverse the trend even if Elon’s decision *doesn’t* increase enrollments and new donations. Tenured faculty probably couldn’t make quite as much money as they do now, though. And that would be fine. If you have job security (and yes, that’s in part what tenure is), you don’t need quite as high a salary as people without that security.

S, at 12:00 pm EST on December 2, 2008

Adjuncts can be included in a community of scholars

I truly sympathize with those adjunct faculty who are working close to full-time and but being paid little and having few if any benefits. However, many adjunct faculty are like me—we work full-time elsewhere and teach a class each quarter. We do this for a variety of reasons, including a desire to use our experience and knowledge, to stay current in our fields, to spend time with lively, questioning students, and to share perspectives with colleagues who chose to dedicate themselves to teaching, research, and writing.

My first experience as an adjunct was teaching graduate students in a large urban university. No one seemed to care what I did as long as my student reviews were at least 80% positive. I was never once informed of a department or faculty event. No support for developing a totally new course was offered (although I asked). There was no administrative support for ordering books, producing the syllabus, or printing class materials. Not once did anyone at the university contact me to see how the class was going. Ironically, the program was in the school of education.

Three years later, still wanting to teach, I accepted (with some trepidation) an offer to teach a graduate-level class in the school of education at another major university. The program director worked closely with me and a co-instructor on the syllabus. Texts and materials were ordered and produced for us. The director sat in on several classes and offered feedback and guidance. I am now in my fourth year of teaching in that program. I know my full-time and part-time colleagues well. Whenever I send out a request for information, several faculty members jump in to help. At least three times each year full-time and adjunct faculty meet to discuss the program as a whole, solve problems, advise the director. If we see a student having problems, the director and associate directors share their insights and offer support. As you might imagine, adjunct faculty stick around. We also willingly spend time meeting with our students and helping each other when needed.

It is possible to include adjunct faculty in a community of scholars. I realize this is an exceptional program with exceptional administrators and faculty, but if it can happen here, in a large, traditional, prestigious university, certainly this kind of collegiality and mutual support could be more widespread. In this kind of setting, the contributions of all—full-time and adjunct—can be clearly seen. And when the contributions are visible, I’m guessing that better pay, benefits, and possibly tenure track for those who want it, will come. It takes planning, commitment, and respect for the contributions of all faculty.

CB in Chicago, at 12:00 pm EST on December 2, 2008

Why Fight It?

We adjunct faculty need to stop buying into the straw-man argument that using more adjuncts is a bad thing for education and instead join forces with the administrations of our schools to provide a better, more flexible, more efficient faculty going forward. Of course the full timers are against using more adjuncts! If you’re K-Mart, would you petition for or against a new Wal-Mart store in your area? No — adjuncts need to change their allegience; that’s the best way for us to get what we want and need from the schools we work for. All faculty members are not created equal — don’t buy into that myth, which is being spread by the full-timer dominated labor unions.

Brian Cushing, at 12:05 pm EST on December 2, 2008

May I?

May I respond to Ms. Pelletier, who seeks a dialogue?Can it be possible you feel you were not/are not educated by your college experience? Or, if you have been educated/are being educated, is it just that you worry others may not be bright enough to triumph over the stultifying forces of liberal education? Mercifully, by dint of much effort, I managed to get a decent education despite having had to suffer professors who were moderate to liberal probably 66% of the time. But it was tough—I admit that. And I’m just so glad children rarely have to go to college and be exposed to the indoctrination of a liberal education. It’s hard enough for adults to bear.

BertW, at 12:31 pm EST on December 2, 2008

The demand for data seems to speak volumes on the ongoing situation. Can you truly quantify the outcome of learning or job satisfaction? It seems to me for the many institutions touting various educational values, why not at least try to live up to one in respect to the idea of tenure. For it seems to me, as idealistic as it may be, that tenure is the welcoming in and commitment to a faculty member’s free pursuit of an area of study and instruction. Without question pay and benefits are important, especially as a “full-time” adjunct getting relatively little of both, but they are not all that should be considered.

perplexed, question of values, at 1:05 pm EST on December 2, 2008

I’m wondering if the change from more to less adjuncts also came with a change in pay and/or benefits. Did the tenured faculty have to “give back” to make this plan work? How does the pay and benefits of Elon’s faculty compare to its peers?

Fred, at 1:55 pm EST on December 2, 2008

“some” = how many”

Scott Jaschik statement, “Elon has hired some former adjuncts into tenure-track jobs,” would be more (or less) reassuring if it were more specific. How many are “some"? What % of new tenure track hires are former adjuncts?

Did anything change for left behind adjuncts?

VCVaile, at 2:40 pm EST on December 2, 2008

Mary,

Don’t be put off by BertW’s type of condescending remarks. Just peruse IHE’s archives and then you’ll be reassured that your instincts are correct.

There has been a plethora of excellently reported articles concerning adjuncts. This is, of course, one issue important to many of us, if simply only because it will ultimately affect our pocketbooks, and as we all know from daily life, this is what motivates most people, especially in the left-dominated academy.

Everyone: the adjunct situation will not go away. It has been produced by our system, and so we all owe it a resolution. The cost-benefit analysis is important, but why do we have to have Elon’s “solution” be challenged by the demand for an immediate summary of all of the (yawn) relevant statistical data? Elon decided to do something, so they did something. Our state motto is, after all, “Esse Quom Videri” — To be, rather than to seem.) They already decided. Let the scenario play out — we don’t have to write a paper on it right now!

I’m hopeful that this necessary trend will take hold.

DFS, at 3:35 pm EST on December 2, 2008

Tenure Track vs. Adjunct

The argument that tenure track professors are “better” than adjunct professors in the classroom can’t be proven or dis-proven. The argument takes on a different hue, however, when you discuss the topic of shared faculty governance.

To state the obvious, the more tenured and tenure-track professors a university hires, the more faculty governance can be shared. Very few academic governance committees allow non-tenure track faculty to participate. Also, mid-level administrators tend to be transitory, often with fixed term limits. The only permanent employees on the academic side of the house are the tenured and tenure track faculty. Academic governance issues naturally fall on the people with the greatest vested interest, the tenured and tenure track faculty. If there aren’t enough tenured faculty to govern adequately, then the governance will be handled by the transitory administrators. The students and the institution suffers.

Richard Shepperd, at 4:45 pm EST on December 2, 2008

The data question related to the instructional effectiveness of adjunct faculty is a valid one. However,it is not the only question that should be asked. We’ve gotten into the nasty habit over the years of viewing “labor” as a largely unrestricted variable that we can manipulate as we please to achieve a productivity goal of some sort without any reference to the quality of employment we are offering. This is not a law of nature. Imagine, for a moment that one of our institutional goals, in addition to providing high quaity education for students, was to offer high quality, consistent, and secure employment to those who work in our institution. It is hard to argue that any of these adjectives generally apply to adjunct employment comditions at any of our institutions. I’m waiting, of course, for the lecture on “market forces,” but they are not laws of nature either. In any case, congratulations to our colleagues at Elon.

Dave S, at 4:50 pm EST on December 2, 2008

Commitment really is the issue. As an adjunct I didn’t give a rat’s behind about institution x or institution y. They were exploiting me, I knew it, and I did just what I had to do and not a lot more. I was on good terms with most of my students, I got their papers back in a timely manner, I held “office hours” in the hallway or library, and in the classroom conveyed my enthusiasm for my discipline and for learning, but afterward I went home and got ready for another of my jobs (adjunct at another college, motel night clerk, reference librarian, or distance learning adjunct). I wasn’t part of the community of the colleges that employed me. I was a transient. One college was 30 miles away. Another was 20 miles in the opposite direction—and then there was the school that was in a distant state. I didn’t see the students around town. I didn’t invite them to pizza and cokes for long discussions on a Friday afternoon. I didn’t run into them except maybe on my way to my car. I didn’t sit with them in mixed college committees. I didn’t advise them much. I didn’t help them plan activities.

As a full-timer, I want my students and my institution to do well. I want my students’ degrees to mean something. I want my colleagues to stand firm on their standards. I seek ways to invigorate my academic department, trying to get the best hires we can and teaching the most up-to-date curricula and approaches that we can. Because I have the time, I investigate different teaching methods and approaches, and do everything I can to read, write, and think in my discipline because I believe that keen knowledge in a discipline is certainly part of what makes a good and exciting and relevant teacher.

Am I a better teacher than when I was an adjunct? Probably, if only because my insitition has put a lot of professional development dollars into my training over the years and because I can go at no personal expense to national conferences, learning about what other people in my field and facing similar problems and concerns are doing; I can focus on my ONE job, my passion, meaning my discipline, my students, my department, my insitution.

If the guys (or gals) making peanuts busting their behinds to teach a couple of classes here and a couple of classes there (driving here and yon, along with getting to any other employment)—if such folks can bring as much attention, creativity, learning, and passion to their teaching as I do after twenty years (ten as a hungry part-timer and ten as a fully supported full-timer), then my hat is off to those heroic individuals. Their insitutions do not deserve them.

Dr. F, at 7:55 pm EST on December 2, 2008

It’s the adjunct system not the adjuncts

The problem with adjuncts isn’t the adjuncts, it’s the adjunct system. When you pay someone by the course to give lectures and grade assessments, that’s what you get. If you want someone that is going to advise students, collaborate with other faculty members, understand how a course fits into a curriculum and serve on committees, you need full time employees. I am sure many adjunct faculty members would make great full time employees. More full time employees would lighten the non-teaching burdens on all faculty.

We need to understand to what extent tenure and other peculiar higher education hiring policies lead to ever more adjuncts. Why don’t colleges just hire faculty in the same manner that other organizations hire professional employees? Why the strange mix of part-timers, short-term contracts and guaranteed lifetime employment instead of regular at-will employment? I don’t buy that you need tenure to protect academic freedom any more than you need tenure to protect people against other kinds of discrimination.

3DLearner, at 3:15 pm EST on December 5, 2008

Dr. F

You have it exactly right. Thank you.

DFS, at 5:45 pm EST on December 5, 2008

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