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[keebler]

I have been an adjunct for years, just finished my Ph.D., and I have a new fulltime job that is on the teaching, not tenure, track.  I do know the obvious nuts-and-bolts aspects of my new situation (more teaching oriented, no research/publication expectations, higher load because of that, lower salary as well, a review and promotion system supposedly in place.) I'd be interested in hearing from people who know more than I do about whether this is a growing trend, or what people's experiences have been in terms of job security, how they are viewed by tenure-track faculty, and so on.  Thanks -- Keebler

[onion]

My university has recently developed what they refer to as a "two-tiered faculty"--the research tenure track and the teaching tenure track.  The teaching tenure track has the perils you've mentioned--higher teaching load, lower salary.  In the case of our school, they have yet to put any tenure qualifications in place for the people they've hired on the teaching tenure track.  I find this scary. 

I fear that, in the case of my school, this "teaching tenure track" is a way to erode and eventually eliminate tenure.  The folks on the teaching tenure track have been offered renewable 5 year contracts, but haven't been told when or how they will go up for tenure.  As our tenured folks retire, more and more people are being hired on this teaching tenure track, or moved OFF the research tenure track and onto this ill-defined teaching tenure track.  No tenured faculty? No problem--cheaper work force, classes still covered, and the pesky faculty senate just goes away.   No chance of unionization--right to work state.  And our AAUP chapter has withered and died.  With things as bad as they are in most humanities job markets, new PhDs are willing to take these jobs and administrators are more than happy to exploit them.

There are studies that show that women are disproportionately found in these teaching tenure track jobs (I don't have citations at my fingertips), as they tend to be in Rhetoric or Comp, and these jobs are the best way to manage work and family, to move in and out of the job market as necessary.  But as you mentioned, their earning potential gets capped at a lower level.

Just my two cents.

[obprof]

I've been hearing a lot about this kind of arrangement recently. I think the upside might be more job security for some adjuncts. Around here we have some "temporary" people who have worked here for 30 years! Obviously they know what they're doing -- it doesn't make sense for them to be on yearly contracts (the old arrangement).

That said, I would be leery of assuming the school actually means what it says about "no research requirement". If you're at an R1, I suspect that they will expect research of some kind (or at the very least it can't hurt).

How about some pedagogical researach? About how students learn with your new technique (e.g., technology, groups, volunteering, whatever). Or about cheating? Or something else?

[pasdemaison]

In medical centers splitting up faculty lines into research, clinical, and teaching is already pretty common, and tenure is disappearing.  It makes academic life a lot more like an ordinary job, which has its pros and cons.  It makes occasional and without-salary faculty (often known as adjuncts on these boards, but "adjunct" refers to the research track at my university) part of the system, instead of an exploited underclass.  It cuts into the traditional privileges and protections of tenured faculty, including the right to never publish anything again, or in some cases, do much of anything again, after reaching associate.  And it usually forces departments to be explicit about the requirements for promotion in different tracks.  And it often leads to an unofficial hierarchy of faculty types; usually the last remaining tenured faculty are superior to the research faculty, who in turn are superior to the clinical faculty, with the teaching faculty at the bottom. 

I suspect this is the future of most academic jobs, and I agree that it will probably erode and eliminate tenure.  I am not sure whether this is necessarily a bad thing.  The academic job market is already horribly broken, and pretending that everything is fine because a small percentage of people with academic jobs have really fantastic benefits in the form of tenure I find sort of appalling and definitely not sustainable.  I know too many tenured faculty who abuse the expectations of tenure (e.g. the expectation that they'll keep working on SOMETHING after getting it) to believe that universities will suddenly decide to return to the good old days.  Like any systemic change this transition has the potential to be good and bad; in my university, my department is very involved in designing a promotion system that's fair and egalitarian, and it's actually working out pretty well.

[miss_m]

Keebler, you are part of the majority contingent faculty in the academy. There are FT and PT contingents, and you have moved into the FT bracket. What does that mean? All sorts of things. First, you work on a contract for a specific period of time, right? Before they renew your contract, you will be reviewed. In some places FT NTT faculty are reviewed by the Rank & Tenure (or analogous) department committee, but in other places it is just a department chair or program director or group of admins who do the review. However, as you rightly realize, this will depend mostly on your teaching. I suggest you find out early EXACTLY what they will want to review. In my humanities field, it is most common to ask folks in these positions to assemble portfolios that demonstrate teaching excellence through evals, syllabi and rationales, updated teaching philosophies, etc. But the best additions were often the scholarly activity these folks did toward developing their teaching and pedagogy. Find out if this is an implicit or explicit expectation for you as well.

As far as security goes, you can only count on them for the length of the contract you have in-hand and know that each renewal is like a new application--and can be turned down. Now, some programs and departments have whole units composed of FT NTT faculty and like to keep the same people in if they are good, so you may be in one that is "likely" to renew you, but please, please be clear on what they expect from you--in terms of service, collegiality, production, teaching evals numbers, etc. I have personally seen some good people fall down in these positions because they thought it was 1) a step toward the tenure track and, therefore, not important beyond a personal agenda or 2) just a new kind of adjuncting where showing up to teach was enough. (And yes, many people use these jobs as a start toward a TT position, but that only works if you meet the employer's expectations WHILE producing scholarship that can get you hired somewhere else.)

Good luck, and if you need anything specific, feel free to PM me. I have done a good deal of higher ed workforce research and can give you more specifics for different fields, etc.

MM