Half-Time Work on the Tenure Track
Wednesday, January 23, at 1 p.m. U.S. Eastern timeShould colleges allow more professors to hold half-time, tenure-track positions?
In recent years, many colleges have considered how they can be more supportive of professors with young children, and whether their lack of support hinders the professional advancement of new parents, especially women. Many colleges have experimented with granting more time before tenure reviews, and some have allowed couples to share academic appointments. But only a few colleges have allowed individuals to hold half-time, tenure-track or tenured positions. Some experts on family issues say that such positions should be encouraged if academe is serious about making it possible for parents to meet their family and professional obligations.
» Working Half Time on the Tenure Track (1/25/2002)
Joan Williams, director of the Program on Gender, Work, and Family at American University, is a leading expert on family law and employment issues. She is the author of Unbending Gender: Why Family and Work Conflict and What to Do About It (Oxford University Press). She is a member of the Scholars' Advisory Board of the Women's Studies in Religion Program at the Harvard Divinity School, and she is a past president of the Association of American Law Schools' sections on property law and on law and the humanities. Ms. Williams will respond to questions and comments about half-time tenure-track positions on Wednesday, January 23, at 1 p.m. U.S. Eastern time. Advance questions are encouraged and may be posted now.
Robin Wilson (Moderator):
Hi, I'm Robin Wilson, a correspondent in the Faculty Section of The Chronicle, and I'll be the host today. I write about work/life issues for The Chronicle, a topic that seems to be of growing concern to our readers. I'm happy to be chatting today with our guest, Joan Williams, who is one of the foremost experts in the field. Glad to have you with us, Professor Williams.
Joan Williams:
I'm delighted to be here today. I welcome the opportunity to comment on this important issue and am pleased that The Chronicle of Higher Education is playing a role in focusing attention on the lack of quality part-time work for tenure-track academics.
Robin Wilson (Moderator):
Let's start today with a broad question about just what's available out there on campuses, in terms of part-time positions:
Question from Karen McCrindle, University of Toronto:
What is the likelihood that half-time tenure-track positions will be considered, especially by large, prestigious universities with high demands for research and publishing? Do you know of any such discussion taking place in Canada?
Joan Williams:
My sense is that universities will have to move toward serious consideration of half-time, tenure-track positions, and this is why: In academics, as in other elite professions, there is a gushing hole in the pipeline for women. Women have been entering academics in high numbers for several decades but they have not reached the highest rungs of the profession in proportionate numbers. They are facing both glass-ceiling problems, composed primarily of exclusion from masculine social networks and Catch-22's that professional women often face. But most women academics never get near the glass ceiling, because they're stopped fairly early-on in their careers by the maternal wall. So, what we have found is that, not only are women less likely to become tenured and to become full professors, even if they do accomplish that level of achievement, they are less likely to teach at prestigious research universities. And what has become clear in the past 20 years is that women will not filter up the pipeline until work/family issues are addressed in a serious way that allows them to remain "players" professionally while continuing to honor our traditions of nuturance for children and for elders by family members. So, in short, it has become crystal clear that the university truly committed to gender equality will address work/family issues in a serious way by creating quality part-time options.
This commitment to gender equality has traditionally been thought of in terms of opportunities for women, but what's really going on is increasingly, we are seeing emerge two different groups of men, as well. One group are the ideal workers, who are unencumbered by family responsibilities because they have a trailing spouse who handles virtually all family matters. The other are men who not only talk the talk of gender equality, they also walk the walk. Economically, there's a wage gap between these two groups of men that is widening. And in academics, it is increasingly the first group that is getting ahead, and the second group that is being left behind with other parents who are on the front-lines of family care. So, gender equality has important implications not only for women's opportunities in academics, but also for opportunities for men, many of whom are now too apprehensive even to ask for time for family care, because they are afraid that even asking, even if they never follow through, will mean the end of career advancement in academics. This also is gender discrimination.
I am not aware of any studies in Canada.
Question from Malcolm L. McCallum, Arkansas State University:
Having taught for 5 years as an adjunct and part-timer, I feel that the only way that an institution can ensure the quality of education is to employ full-time tenure track faculty. In every case I have seen over more than a dozen colleges and universities, the part-timers DO NOT require standards comparable to their full-time counterparts. Part-timers are highly susceptible to student evaluations, seldom monitored by the college, and either more involved in finding a full-time position or in their life outside that institution than any full time member is. Full-time always equals higher quality for the students than part-time.
Joan Williams:
The question is addressed to part-time academics, in a context where there is virtually no quality part-time work available in academics. That means that part-timers, as the questioner points out, often have to be involved in finding a full-time position or other employment because part-timers as adjuncts are so underpaid and so disadvantaged professionally that it's really not a viable, long-term career option for serious academics. That is precisely the situation that the proposals for quality part-time tenure tracks are designed to address and correct. If one could have a serious position working part time and contributing to the department in every way that a full-time academic contributes, then many of the problems that the questioner is concerned about would disappear. Part of the question merely stresses the need for quality part-time work in academics.
However, the questioner also raises a different point, and that is: Whether a part-timer can ever be as good as a full-timer in terms of his or her contributions to an institution. Here, I think you have to raise a couple of questions. First, the claim that full time always equals higher quality than part time rests on a heroic assumption: That if you limit the pool to people who can work "full-time," which in academics often means 60 hours a week, you are tapping the most talented, relevant labor pool. This is not a valid assumption. Starting from the basic demographic fact that 92 percent of mothers work less than 40 hours a week year round, during the key pre-tenure years, opening up tenure-track positions only to "full-timers" systematically excludes a huge and important part of the pool of potential talent. So that's the first reason that full time does not always equal higher quality.
The questioner also raises the issue of whether a part-timer can be
available to students. The fact is, full-timers are not available to
students 24 hours a day, or even 60 hours a week at any institution with
which I have ever been affiliated. Even full-timers have office hours. Even
full-timers carve out time for other important activities, professional and
personal. And balance those responsibilities with their responsibilities to
students. So, the assumption that part-timers can never be suitably
accessible to students is questionable for that reason. It is also
questionable because in the age of e-mail and cell phone, someone sitting
on the playground watching a toddler, or sitting with a partner dying of
AIDS, can be more accessible to students if truly necessary than someone
who's giving a research paper at a conference.
Question from Dr. G. Jay Christensen, CA State University, Northridge:
For years I have been concerned about the nepotism in selected colleges and universities. By suggesting we give part-time tenure track positions to husbands and wives, aren't we encouraging a furtherance of nepotism that can interfere with promotions, committee assignments, and personnel matters? What do you think?
Joan Williams:
The questioner is confusing two different institutions. The first is the job-share, which is the primary way -- in most institutions the only way -- that academics have been able to attain quality work with reasonable schedules. The part-time, tenure-track proposal would mean that a faculty member would not have to present a job-share in order to remain on the tenure-track part time. That's the whole point of the part-time, tenure-track proposal, because the job-share model has proved extremely limited in many ways. So, if a part-time tenure track became widely available, one effect would be that universities would be able to attract attractive candidates who require a resonably limited schedule without offering a job-share to that person's partner.
Question from Bob, Public Comprehensive University:
A couple has applied jointly to share a single tenure track position at my University. What are the advantages and potential problems of such an appointment? Is there anything that can be done to minimize the potential for problems?
Joan Williams:
This is a job share, which is distinct from the topic of the chat today, which is the part-time tenure track. Job shares require that you have two people who together are sharing the job, and typically are given to husband-wife or partner teams. The advantage of the part-time tenure track over the job share model is that you do not need to find two similarly qualified people to share one job, which is sometimes difficult. A very easy way to avoid some of the limitations of the job-share model is to consider hiring one person on a part-time tenure track. When you do that, that person will have half of all a professor's responsibilities for teaching, research, and service, and will proceed along the tenure track at half the rate.
Question from Don Campbell, College of Southern Maryland:
If a faculty member goes to half time shouldn't they be paid at the same rate as adjunct faculty at their instutition? Or perhaps wouldn't they be?
Joan Williams:
The part-time tenure track proposal is to institute a faculty position that is identical to current faculty positions in every way, other than schedule. The whole point is to create a full-fledged faculty position for people who are unable, for family or other reasons, to work a full-time schedule, which in academics often stretches to close to 60 hours a week. 92 percent of mothers work less than 50 hours a week in the pre-tenure years. This means that an institution that offers only full-time tenure track or underpaid, marginalized adjunct work, will find a disproportionate number of men moving up the tenure track, and a disproportionate number of women in adjunct positions that are underpaid and, regretably, held in low esteem. There is nothing inevitable about this system. We could create quality, part-time academic jobs anytime we wanted to, and this would mean that mothers and other family caregivers would not be consigned to dead-end, adjunct positions.
Question from Paul D. Brassey, Unemployed:
How does this tiny movement toward allowing established, tenured or tenure-track scholars to work part time relate to improving the lot of the millions of adjuncts whom the system has deemed unworthy of a living wage or benefits?
Joan Williams:
Let me first say that I in no way defend the university system's current treatment of adjuncts. That's a huge problem, and an important one. The way the part-time tenure-track can help is on the margins. Currently, many committed mothers and fathers whose commitment to family care makes them unwilling to work 55 or 60 hours a week are left with only one option: the kind of economic exploitation that adjuncts currently experience. To the extent that some current adjuncts end up as adjuncts rather than on the tenure track because they are unable to work a high overtime schedule, a part-time tenure-track would help.
Question from Kaye, University Association:
What do you feel are the first steps that institutions need to take to change the 'tradition bound' culture on university campuses regarding half-time, tenure track positions?
Joan Williams:
The first step will depend on the political situation. If consensus already exists supporting the need for more flexible approaches to academic careers, one could simply go to the article written by myself and Bob Drago, and use that as a model to amend the faculty manual creating part-time tenure-track positions. Obviously, in many institutions, a prior necessary step will be to work to create a consensus on the need for such positions. Useful in this context are studies that show the falloff of women on the tenure track, and in the steps even after tenure up to full professor, to make the point that gender equality will remain an elusive goal without more flexible career options.
Also useful are the studies that document the very long hours required in "full time" academic positions, along with the demography that shows that few mothers work substantial overtime during pretenure years.
Robin Wilson (Moderator):
It's also important to know what's already out there, in terms of policies on part-time work. We received this comment from the AAUP:
Comment from Jane Buck, President, American Association of University Professors:
For over two decades the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) has supported the granting of tenure and proportional compensation to those faculty members who, for whatever reason, perform their duties on a part-time basis. The AAUP's 1980 "Statement on the Status of Part-time Faculty," provides, in part: "In circumstances in which an institution has legitimate needs for a specialized class of faculty in part-time or fractional-time positions, the institution should have policies that provide for their long-term contract stability and for tenure." The AAUP also supports the proration of compensation for part-time faculty where appropriate. Full discussions of these and other issues are found in the AAUP's "Policy Documents and Reports," Ninth Edition, as well as on our web site, aaup.org.
Question from N. Heller, Drexel, a large private University:
I am currently working on a study of compensation issues effecting female as well as male faculty...I would like to recommend the University consider the policy changes/options you suggest. In what way could I approach the issue or open dialogue with the administration that will have the greatest chance of success?
Joan Williams:
As I've said in response to another question, the key elements of the case for a part-time tenure track are one, the business case -- how a part-time tenure track can save the university money; two, the labor-pool argument -- how a part-time tenure track can help the university attract the best talent; and three, the gender-equality point -- that women will achieve tenure and full professorships only once more flexible schedules become available on tenure track. I would also suggest you take a look at the article I and Bob Drago published in Change on the half-time tenure track, which presents the arguments about why is needed, and pinpoints issues of specific design.
Question from Robin Wilson:
Can you give some advice to professors who might be interested in working part-time while on the tenure track or within the tenured ranks. How might they go about requesting such an option and what kinds of things might they be thinking about when they make the pitch?
Joan Williams:
Key elements to making the case for the need for part-time tenure-track positions are that this is the only way to achieve a proportional represention of women in the higher ranks of the professoriate. One important arrow in the quiver is the gender equality argument. But that is not the only arrow.
A second very important argument is what work-family experts call "the business case." I gave a presentation recently at one university where I was told that one department estimated that they invested roughly $350,000 in a candidate each time they hired someone. Obviously, if one professor after another leaves the tenure track seeking a more balanced schedule, this is a scenario that is very expensive and cost-inefficient for the university. It's just bad business.
Finally, one of the key goals in academics is to attract the most highly-qualified people to one's faculty. If one is offering only a 55-hour-a-week schedule, this eliminates many of the most highly-qualified applicants. Offering only that inflexible overtime schedule means that the university will be choosing not based on academic promise alone, but based on who can keep an overtime schedule. This is a particular problem because social scientists have documented that a baby bust is now following the baby boom, and that the pool of candidates for highly-trained professionals is contracting. To secure the most promising academics, universities should seek to expand the pool upon which they draw.
Question from Robin Wilson:
What are some of the pitfalls, for a professor, of working part time? What is the impact on teaching, on research, and on relationships with colleagues?
Joan Williams:
There is actually some social science that identifies the potential pitfalls of teaching -- or indeed, of doing any job -- part time. Social psychologists have documented that, whereas career women are rated as similar in competence to business men, millionaires, and "Mr. Joe Cool," "housewives" are rated as similar in competence to (and here I used the terms of the researchers) elderly, blind, diabled, and retarded people. What this means for women on the job is that they are at risk of being perceived as less-competent if people stop coding them as "serious" professionals, and start coding them as mothers.
This destructive stereotyping can occur when women become pregnant, or when they return from maternity leave. But even if the stereotyping does not kick in at either of those points in time, it can kick in if a woman begins to act "less serious" by going part-time.
One thing to watch out for if one goes part-time, is whether these destructive and perhaps illegal stereotypes kick in, making colleagues perceive one as less competent or promising. Another major pitfall for a professor going part-time is simply the eternal pitfall of an academic career: namely, how to balance one's responsibilities for research, teaching, and service. That balance is always difficult, but a key point is that it's difficult even for part-timers. Today, if people cannot work as many hours as the idealized 55-hour-a-week, "full-time" schedule, often they see little alternative but to cut back on research. The point of the part-time tenure track is to provide another alternative that is less self-defeating in the longer term.
Question from Jennifer Hart, University of Arizona:
We have just completed a comprehensive study of worklife and climate issues focused on women faculty and faculty of color. One of the recommendations from the study was to consider a part-time tenure track option. Now we are in the implementation stage of the project. Do you have any suggestions of ways to best construct a part-time tenure track position, particularly at a Research I institution?
Joan Williams:
One useful resource that I have mentioned several times is the half-time tenure track proposal by Robert Drago and myself, published in the November/December 2000 issue of Change. In that article, Bob and I set out a model half-time tenure-track policy. Another useful resource is the study by David Leslie and James Wilke: "Out of the Ordinary: the Anamalous Academic," funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. That is a study of part-time work among faculty members that provides useful background for institutions considering implementing part-time tenure-track proposals, and it's on the Web at http://www.wm.edu/education/Faculty/Leslie/anomacad.html
A third useful resource is the web page of the Faculty and Families Project, funded by the Sloan Foundation, and run by Bob Drago at Penn State.
Question from Andrea, researcher at not-for-profit organization:
One of the major concerns for part-time faculty seems to be the lack of benefits. How do you recommend that institutions provide benefits (especially medical) to half-time tenure-track faculty?
Joan Williams:
The key here is to offer to half-time tenure-track faculty a benefits package that is worth half as much as the benefits package offered to full-time faculty members. This can be done in any number of ways. An integral part of creating the half-time tenure track will be to have a university negotiate a suitable, proportional benefits package for personnel on the half-time track.
Question from AR, liberal arts college:
How might standards for tenure be different for a person in a part-time position? Presumably quality standards would remain the same as for other faculty, but what about quantity? Is it fair to require 100% for a part-time person's tenure profile? (Even though most institutions are reluctant to specify a quantity of scholarship or service required for tenure, there is usually a general understanding of a necessary amount.)
Joan Williams:
This is an extraordinarily important issue. One problem in the implementation of many stop-the-clock programs in universities around the country is that candidates are evaluated as if the tenure clock had never been stopped, after having been told that the tenure clock would be tolled. This presents problems of misrepresentation, which may have legal implications. A similar problem could arise if someone on a half-time tenure track was told that he or she would be evaluated on a proportional basis, and then was evaluated as if he or she had been working full time. The purpose of the half-time tenure-track proposal is to provide a clear-cut answer to all issues regarding proportionality. Thus, someone on a half-time tenure track, would be held to identical standards as someone who had worked full-time, except that those standards would be applied after a somewhat longer time period (depending on how many half-time years the candidate had elected).
Question from Robin:
If more women than men seek and receive half-time arrangements, do you see any danger that this would affect the image of women generally in a department? Will women be less likely to receive key appointments or be in the loop on key decisions?
Joan Williams:
Obviously, the idea is to have both men and women working both part- and full-time schedules (or, to be more accurate, to be working both part-time and overtime schedules, given that full-time often means overtime). It is my sense that, if a non-stigmatized half-time tenure-track option were made available, men would use it as well as women. This sense is based on reports that, today, men in academics feel oftentimes that they are unable even to broach the subject of taking a semester leave after a child is born, for fear they will no longer be considered serious. In this situation, what the men are facing is a chilly climate based on gender, which many have legal implications. One goal of the gender neutral, half-time tenure-track proposal is to eliminate what some currently perceive as a chilly climate for fathers in academic work places. If that chilly climate were eliminated, then both men and women would benefit, and men as well as women would opt for work place flexibility.
The other thing to remember in this context is that, today, what we have in many contexts is women who drop out of academics because they did not feel they can work four evenings a week and live up to their obligations as mothers. So it's important to recognize, that in some contexts, a choice may be between women who remain on the job and struggle with issues of stigmatization on a half-time tenure track, or women who leave altogether. In this flawed world, it seems better to give women the option of the half-time track, and seek to eliminate stigmatization.
Question from Robin Wilson:
Professor Williams, isn't this whole part-time issue of concern primarily to privileged, married women whose spouses can help support them when they scale back?
Joan Williams:
One important point is that the part-time tenure track concerns issues of family caregiving. Married women face these issues, but in many ways, single mothers often feel even more caught between our ideals at home and our ideals at work than do married women. In many divorced families, and many families of never-married mothers, women do an even higher proportion of the child care than they do in the families of married women. So issues of family caregiving are distinct from the question of whether the caregiver is married.
They're also distinct from issues of sexuality: committed family caregivers can be gay, or even queer, as well as straight. Obviously, one limitation of the half-time tenure track is that it offers only half salary. But, for many, the alternative of allowing only a high overtime, "full-time," tenure track will mean that family caregivers cannot pursue tenure-track careers at all, and are confined to extraordinarily underpaid adjunct positions.
Question from Robin:
Many colleges are facing tight budgets right now, and are having a tough time replacing people who leave. How do you see these tight budget times affecting the half-time option?
Joan Williams:
The key point here is that the current system costs universities large amounts of money in ways that are virtually never recognized. Standard human resources estimates are that it costs between 75 percent and 200 percent of a worker's annual salary to replace her when she leaves. We enumerate all of the costs associated with high attrition on page 7 of the final report of the Par project, which is available on the Web at http://www.pardc.org. Recall that earlier I was reciting a conversation with one university official who said that his institution invested roughly $350,000 in each new faculty member. The high costs of attrition need to be recognized; once they are, universities facing tight budgets will see the wisdom of implementing the part-time tenure tracks.
Robin Wilson (Moderator):
It's about time to wrap up the discussion. Professor Williams, thank you very much for being with us today.
Joan Williams:
I am very heartened that The Chronicle has written about and held this forum to address the issue of the half-time tenure track. This is an extraordinarily important issue for reasons of gender equality, and in order to improve the life balance of academics: those with children, those who may have severely ill partners, and those with elderly parents. Once you add up these three groups, it becomes clear the sweeping importance of making available in academics non-marginalized, part-time tenure tracks.
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