In the 1960s, 97 percent of faculty nationwide either had tenure or were on the tenure track. The intervening years have not been kind. Today, only 68 percent of nationwide faculty appointments are either part or full time (contingent) and are off the tenure track.

According to the Sep./Oct. edition of Academe, the bimonthly magazine of the American Association of University Professor (AAUP), “the term (contingent faculty) calls attention to the tenuous relationship between academic institutions and the part and full time non-tenure-track faculty members who teach in them.”

On Oct. 31, in the Walnut Room, Cat Warren, president of the AAUP in North Carolina, and her colleague Deborah Anne Hooker explored issues related to contingent faculty in a presentation entitled “Trick or Treat? The Use and Misuse of Nontenure Track Faculty.” Faculty and staff attendance was high, but despite an open invitation, no students attended.

“Nationally things are pretty grim,” Warren said. “Faculty salaries have stagnated for the last 20 years. And not just for contingent faculty. We are faced with the death of tenure. (Only) 20 percent of new faculty hires are on the tenure track this year, the lowest percentage ever. That is not a good thing.”

Tenure is a long-established policy in most colleges and universities. If it is earned, it basically guarantees a professor’s a job at their college for life. One of the most important aspects of tenure is that it safeguards academic freedoms on campus, ensuring that professors can pursue theories or research that is not in line with established hierarchies on campus or in society.

Tenure is also expensive and in an era when many colleges and universities are short on funds, many administrations have been trying to cut back on the number of tenured professors hired.

College attendance rates are mushrooming as well so schools have had to resort to non-tenure-track professors or contingent faculty. These faculty are not safeguarded by tenure and are therefore in a more vulnerable position when expressing contentious views.

Warren spoke on campus last year at the behest of Dana Professor of Psychology and President of Guilford’s nascent AAUP chapter Richie Zweigenhaft.

“We picked (the topic of contingent faculty) because this is an issue nationally,” Zweigenhaft said. “(We wanted) to take a look and make sure we were being as fair and conscientious as possible at Guilford. They found that our school is doing pretty well.”

“Guilford has 35.7 percent part-time; that’s not awful,” Hooker said. “It’s not a horrible place to be but there are places that are better. Only five percent of Davidson’s faculty are contingent.”

“There were two areas that she thought we needed to work on,” Zweigenhaft said.
“One was clarity in the agreement. What are the agreements (and) what are the expectations for part-time people? Do we expect them to do anything more then teach a class or two?”

Hooker was also concerned that too much emphasis is placed on student evaluations, privileging popular teachers while disadvantaging demanding teachers. She suggested that peer review was equally important and that contingent faculty should be given enough feedback and enough time to fix what they have been critiqued on.

Nationally contingent faculty are routinely underpaid and overworked. According to the Faculty and College Excellence campaign, many hold master’s or doctorate degrees but are still paid around $20,000 a year, even with a full course load.

“We all love what we do,” Warren said. “We don’t need to consider that we are working 65 hours a week while part-time faculty are cobbling together an existence, driving from campus to campus, where they don’t have offices or computers. It is really an embarrassment but it is also the future.”